My biggest challenge as a mother is NOT changing diapers, sleepless nights, and cleaning sippy cups.
My biggest challenge haunts me daily. It suffocates me and frustrates me.
It is my complete inability to savor a moment.
I’ve always been this way. Whenever I TRY to take a moment in and cherish it, that cherishing just consists of me spending that moment fixating on how that moment will be OVER shortly. So instead of enjoying a moment, I sit there depressing myself over how it will soon be gone.
This issue is so bad that I look at all the photos of my two year old from when she was a baby and I hardly remember anything. I swear I have some kind of disorder–like before I know it I will be leaving post-it notes everywhere like the guy from Memento.
Whenever someone says, “Cherish this moment, it will be gone before you know it” I want to give them some villainous snarl because I just can’t fathom how people can do that. I can’t do that.
Sometimes cherishing means me taking a picture to remember it. But then quite often I am too busy taking the picture that I can’t cherish the moment. If I don’t take a picture, I sit there thinking about how I know I won’t remember it, or just that the moment will never come again. Depressing. See my problem?
But what I underestimate is the power of the mind. You CAN block out thoughts. Just don’t allow them to be there. Instead, I will use my moment to forbid me to fixate on how the moment will be gone, but just take a moment to feel so grateful and blessed to be given that moment.
I often think about what heaven must be like. And I have decided that if I take all these moments and cherish them, then heaven must be where all those moments exist and I can just bathe in them for eternity. And if Heaven isn’t like that, then it must be something better–and I look forward to that.
So my baby step right now is to take those moments and really cherish them. Who’s with me?
Who has some great tips for cherishing moments?
It’s hard to do. I can only think of a few times that I’ve felt completely present (without a million things on my mind) Looking out at the ocean from the beach. Watching my son play in the grass. Giving my son a bath and marveling at warm water coming out of the tap (that’s crazy amazing if you think about it) And I lived in a frigging Buddhist meditation center for a year! (I was there to write grant proposals, not meditate, but still, you’d think some of that would have sunk in)
I think this blog will help you cherish some moments because it is a little like a journal. Enjoy the moments, don’t disrupt them too much by taking pictures, just enjoy them. Then write a few thoughts about those simple, ordinary, wonderful moments for you to remember always.
That sound’s exactly like me! I find myself crying when I look at my son’s pictures after he’s gone to bed, and find myself thinking, “Where is all this time going, and where have I been??” I Hold on to every moment like a savory morsel only to find my plate empty when it’s over. Things are getting better though. The best advice I received was just like what you said; it’s all about mind power. Whenever I feel those helpless depressing thoughts creeping in, I just take a breath and focus on my son. I find that distraction is the key to living in the moment. The best way is for me to get involved and start playing with him, or participate in whatever is going on instead of just watching. I feel like I’m telling my mind “NO I WILL NOT GO THERE!.” It doesn’t always work, but when it does those are the best and most vivid memories I get to hold on to.
Your blog has inspired me to do something similar. I have so many aspirations that I allow to lay dormant. I’m going to try my best to not allow it anymore.
I have always lived for the present. No thought of what my actions will bring tomorrow. This has been good in ways that I get to cherish my moments with my son to the fullest. I often find myself watching him in awe quite a lot. Then I’ll turn and look to the husband and he’s off in his own head thinking of motorcycles or something missing all the awesome that I am enjoying.
Living in the present is not always good though. I have found myself in many horrible situations, so caught up in trying to get through life day by day and partying as much as possible (I thought partying was how you enjoy life) that I missed out on a large chunk of time I could have been with my Mother before she died.
I’ve learned there must be a balance of living in the present and thinking of the future. I have a lot of work to do because I think I tend to stop and smell the roses too much.
The funny thing is despite cherishing all these moments I’ve had with my son I cannot remember even half of them. You say your problem is being fixated on the fact that the moment will soon be gone and missing out on it. I just plain forget. This goes for everything else in my life.
I’ve come to accept the fact that I’m not going to remember everything, but knowing I at least spent a lot (too much even) just sitting back enjoying it.
My advice, forget about the past and future when you think it won’t effect either. It won’t matter if you can remember it or not. You may not remember every single cherished moment but you’ll know you cherished the time you had. The thing is life is very short. Before you know it you won’t have any time left to enjoy life.
I take a lot of pictures as well. Just so I can remember what things looked like back when I enjoyed those great moments. Try to turn the picture taking into part of the cherished moment. Instead of trying to catch that perfect moment, just sit back and go crazy with the picture taking. You will probably get a lot of the same photo, but you can turn it into something fun to add into the moment.
When I sit back and watch my son do his thing sometimes I’ll grab the camera and take pictures. If I put them into a book it’d be like those moving picture book things that kids always draw in their school books.
Anyway, pardon my rambling =D