Just Push Play

Do you ever want to press pause? Just stop life just where it is so you can hold on just a little tighter and take in a seemingly perfect instant more completely? And do you ever want to fast forward through a whole season of overwhelmed life?

 

I'm feeling stuck between these places lately. I feel like I've been in a season I'd much rather have skipped for a while now. I'm trying to recognize the moments worth pausing for in the midst of this season that I like to call - well, nevermind...

I'm trying to "keep moving forward" (Ahh, Disney brilliance!) through the tricky and treasure the delights as they spin past.

 

That's right. I'm trying - and I'm failing all the time. It's a goal though. That's something right? 
Step 1: Make a goal.
Step 2: Fail a lot of times.
Step 3: Decrease number of failures.
Repeat 1-3 until dead. (Sigh.)

This past week, I was lucky (blessed, spoiled, overjoyed!) to have been included in the bridal party of a friend I can hardly remember not knowing and I intend to keep forever. We have plans for a nursing home in common. I plan to hold her to that as well as many years of antics between now and then. This weekend, she made it permanent with someone I'm glad to add to the list of people I'll keep forever. I can't imagine how I could be happier for them both. I'm doing that weird thing where I smile at my laptop just thinking about it all. So, all this to say it was a week that left me with many extra pause-worthy moments.

• Catching up with old friends 
• New friendships that came easily because they were friend pre-tested
• Excessive girliness - fancy shoes, pretty nails, flowers, amazing new jewelry, and our hair will never look that good again (out of my norm and fully, gladly embraced)
• Too much fun followed by too much laughing followed by too much talking and too little sleeping. All perfectly recovered from with advil, coffee, and magic donuts
• Blinking away tears as I watched ridiculously happy unfold (Ok, fine! I cry at weddings - especially when they are my favorite people. I cry all the time! There. I'm owning it. Don't repeat it. I'll find you and you'll pay!)
• Photo poses that will make us laugh forever
• Dancing terribly, terribly happily 

And it brought me home for other sweet moments

• Hazelnut coffee from the favorite cup that waits hiding for me on a top shelf
• Playing grocery store with a friend's little one
• No cell service (blessing? curse? both!)
• Setting up "office" at Panera bread again - home away from internet-free-home
• Saying the Lord's Prayer in its proper rhythm (it somehow feels a little more complete in the cadence you first learned it in)
• Familiar worship songs from familiar voices
• And what's not to love about a rainy roadtrip with blasting new music?

If I could just remember that the pause-worthy moments make the fast-forward-preferred moments worth surviving.  The contrast is starker, stronger, sweeter if you survive without fast-forwarding and the pause is short.

So, I guess, just push play. It makes sense. If I can convince myself of that I could, perhaps, have a little more Step 3...