Sipping the Past to Savor the Present

Our church offered free childcare today to give busy parents a chance to cross a few things off of their December "to-do" lists. My kids were ecstatic when I announced this morning that they would be heading to the church for a kids' activity day. Toby had no idea what I said, but hey, excitement is catching. With a small church, the place and faces were familiar to the kids, so Matt and I were at ease dropping them off and enjoying some time to ourselves--that's high on my "to-do" list.

We had a quiet, leisurely lunch at home, then sat at Starbucks where I enjoyed a warm peppermint Mocha. The Starbucks atmosphere took me right back to downtown Chicago ten years ago, when my roommate and I would study for hours at there. And to the few times that Matt flew back in from Seminary and joined me at a Starbucks to help me with my Greek homework. It will be ten years ago this coming New Years Day that Matt and I were engaged, and our ninth wedding anniversary on January 5th. Today helped me to "zoom out" from the daily details of diaper duty and job hunting. It was fresher air and a much prettier view looking at the whole of the last ten years. It gave me a bit more energy to tackle the tasks at hand when we crashed back into kid-world a few hours later.

Our life was beautiful ten years ago, and it is beautiful now, just very different. It was a pleasant dip into the past, but returning to the present to hear Toby squealing, "Mom-my!" and see the button-decorated ornaments the girls made was far better.