How Can We Stay "In the Moment" With Our Kids?
It's a universal struggle, but there are ways.
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the ever-accelerating passage of time. Every year now zooms by in what feels like three months. How do I already have a high schooler and middle schooler? Before I know it, my kids will be grown up, moving out of the house, living their own lives. It’s hard to imagine that not-so-far-away future. My heart aches that this part of my life feels so fleeting.
These thoughts have inspired a deep and clawing desire to have more fun with my kids. I want, for instance, to spend an entire Saturday baking pies with my daughter. I’ve never done this before, but in my imagination, it unfolds like a dream: I’m standing beside her in our messy kitchen, laughing, savoring our time together, not worrying or thinking about anything else as we bake and bake and bake.
Except I know that’s not how it would actually happen. If I did set aside an entire Saturday to bake pies with my daughter — which is unlikely because soccer!!! — I wouldn’t enjoy every moment and delight in all aspects of the experience. I’d be worried that I hadn’t bought all the right ingredients. I’d be thinking about how much I work I had to do next week. I’d be calculating how much time we had before I needed to start making dinner. I’d feel guilty that I wasn’t hanging out with my son.
My back would probably be hurting, I’d be annoyed at the mess we were making, I would wonder if I should be organizing the kitchen cabinets or walking the dog instead.
I don’t know precisely when it became so hard for me to live “in the moment,” but I’ve been this way for a while.
I wish it weren’t so. To the point where I often berate myself for it. Why am I like this? Why can’t I just relax? Why does anxiety bust open the door every time I am presented with a joyful opportunity?
What I need, I know, is mindfulness. Mindfulness is a practice that involves paying attention to and truly being in the present moment, rather than getting lost in thoughts about the past or the future. Mindfulness is basically everything I lack in my life right now. I am always anywhere but truly present.
How do we stay in the present moment, though, when our lives are going a hundred miles an hour? Are some people just naturally good at this, or does everyone find it hard? Is it possible that I’m actually escaping reality on purpose, because I don’t know how to just….. be?