Recently, I was folding the baby’s laundry as he sat and played on the sofa in his room. Above him was a frame, which held some of his ultrasounds and hospital birth momentos.
It got me thinking.
About how precious time is. And how it seemingly flies by. It takes moments quickly with regard for how we feel. Time goes on, as much as we sometimes might not want it to. We can’t press pause or rewind. We can’t truly relive the best times of our life. Once they happen, they become memories. We can only remember them.
In these ways, time is a thief.
But on the flip side, time also takes its “time.” There are moments we wish we could skip but there they are, happening as they should for one reason or another. Then there moments that we have looked forward to and have wanted to have more than anything before. Finally, there are treasured memories–that we can look back on to see how far we’ve come, to reflect on how we’ve felt and to enable us to grow as people.
In these ways, time is a giver.
So while I was a bit sad in the moment seeing my now 6-month baby sitting below his fetus and newborn memories, a feeling of gratefulness swept over me. Yes, I feel as though my pregnancy and his newborn days went by in a blink.
But I remember how I felt in those moments and how at ease I felt with how time was progressing. How anxious and excited I was at becoming a mom. How I sometimes wanted time to speed up. And how happy I am to have him here, siting and playing idly by while I do housework.
So here we are. Life is happening. We might not be able to pause or rewind it but we can press play and live in the present. And realize that the very presence we are living in a gift–that time has given us.
It really is amazing how fast the time flies by.