Today I am grateful for busy.
For the last two days, we have been busy. I used to hate that word. But busy is the only word to describe this weekend.
When you have seven people living in a house with one van and with activities that each person values, it gets a little hairy on the weekends. After my coffee date yesterday morning, my family picked me up and headed straight to Niagara for their cousins birthday party. Only three years old, we were happy to celebrate her day with her at a waterpark and then spent time with family in a hotel room looking over the falls.
Today, after enjoying the sunrise with Ever-Patient, we rushed out this morning to attend an info session for a program that a daughter wants to get involved in. We dropped my other four children in front of St. Lawrence Market so they wouldn’t have to sit through the presentation. They walked down to Harbourfront and we met them there to enjoy our family ritual of attending Word on the Street.
We rushed home to rest a little before we all had to run out the door again. I went to dinner with my eldest and my female cousins and he took the kids to see his parents. He literally walked through the door ten minutes ago.
On paper, this weekend looks nuts. But there was not one moment that I didn’t choose. I knew that as my five children grew up, I would have to step into this kind of life. There is a clear purpose to each event we committed to this weekend whether it be out of love for our extended family, my respect for a child’s interest, a yes to adventure, or celebrating a family love of the written word.
How did I survive this weekend? By knowing this is all a dance with myself in the present moment. The dance is it. How I choose to dance – not thinking about moves two steps ahead but moving in time with the music – is where I find peace.
Instead of focusing on the long drive back late at night from Niagara Falls, I watched with joy as my son stared at the falls in wonder as they lit up at night. I had forgotten that he would have been too little to remember all the other times we had been and this was his “first” time. Instead of rushing through our sunrise thinking ahead to our busy day today, we sat and watched the sun and listened to the crashing waves. Instead of being overwhelmed with the crowds and the choices at Word on the Street, I let my children lead me to what was calling them.
I accept that this is my dance right now, the flight of the honeybee. Busy teaches me acceptance and awareness. Busy pushes me to stop in the midst and enjoy the spaces between. Busy keeps me honest.
During your busiest moments, can you be grateful to live moment to moment, going with the flow?
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42 days of gratitude…giving thanks to it ALL.
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