Today's Good Ole Days

 The other day, I ran across a really great insight when watching one of the weekly vlogs I enjoy keeping up with. The family was commenting on some special time spent with extended relatives and how we all often talk about "the good ole days" but really, the "good ole days" are right now - today! We're living in the present what tomorrow, we'll see as being a time in the past we wish we could go back to and live again. 

I thought about this and realized so much of what ends up inspiring and creating our future is how we're living and operating in our present: what we're doing today and how we're learning from it and changing because of it is informing our tomorrows and how we'll one day look back on this season and realize who we turned into as a result. The degree to which we cherish and make the most of our memories and experiences and lessons today is the degree to which we'll carry either peace or regret into the years ahead. 

If there is one thing that walking through much loss and many traumatic experiences that gave me, early on, a real taste of the brevity of life has shown me it's this: you can't get yesterday, or even the ever-ticking hours of today, back. You only have the gift of the current moment. To sit with and pay attention to what is going on around you and who is with you and who you are now even as you dream about what is coming. Time waits for no one, and there will inevitably be a day sometime when you reflect and wish you'd stopped and savored a bit more... 

There will be a time when your children aren't so little anymore, and they will be a time when your spouse is getting grey and you are too, and there will be a time when that trusted friend or that family member slips away and passes on and suddenly, you're left alone. 

Things are always changing and so are we, but are we doing so gracefully and gradually and gathering the most blessings we can while we can until they're gone forever? 

It's amazing to think of how we're constantly collecting this collage of memories and moments that are making up what will someday be our internal record of how we remember and see our life-stories. What we've chosen to take with us and what we've decided to release. Who we brought along and who had to go by the wayside. And the special times with special people are only here for a blink and then, life changes yet again and we are forced to change again with it. 

There will only ever be one first love, first kiss, first childbirth, first home, etc. Seasons in our lives come and go but there is ever really only one chance to live it. Oh, we can return to a favorite vacation spot or we can go on to have more children or another marriage perhaps or move to different homes or places, but we'll never quite see it or feel as it was the first time. 

All our many moments are just mini firsts: opportunities to see the world or those around us or ourselves or even God in a fresh, new light. That's why God designed our brains to adapt and to change and to constantly be taking things in anew...because life never quite looks the same way twice. And that's what keeps us grounded to the present and able to continuously see something new or different out of even the mundane and routine. 

Maybe you've been rushing through your days a bit more recently and you're feeling as though the world is spinning faster and you are losing sight of what really matters. All the while, strangely, you find yourself longing for a simpler time - a slower time - a time when life seemed more clarified and less scattered and pressed. 

What if I told you, you could still have that again? Yes, actually starting right now, today. What if I told you that how you order your present could change what you look back on someday in the future? 

You don't need to accept that "the good ole days" are for a past time and you'll never see those moments again. Of course, we'll never get an exact repeat of where we've been but we do have chances to start building future "good ole days" experiences that we can look back on with joy and contentment. We can seize the current minutes as being gifts that we open and savor to be one day reflected on with satisfaction and warmth. 

We don't have forever with those we love or the things that matter most to us. So why not begin structuring our lives more intentionally so that we deeply treasure each day, each experience, as being the seeds which create the bloom of future memories we hold close. Why not go push back a little against the modern trend and start making our todays count. I can't say any one of us will someday, in our aged years, wish we'd done otherwise.