Time Passes

Have you ever noticed how easily time sneaks away from you, even when a thing like time is so familiar to us it seems like we never let it out of sight? What really surprises me is not just how quickly time sneaks past, but how easy it is not to notice the passage of time. It's only when I stumble upon obvious markers that I really feel, and internalize, that time moves on, with or without my recognition.

Such a stumbling occurred last week when my family (now a whopping 8 people!) traveled to our familys' beloved beach home in the Outer Banks, North Carolina. Despite the unusual snow cover, I spied this tree, a tree that has happily sat behind our beach home for what I suddenly realized, must have been many years.

{dear southern oak}

I know this tree well. I remember when my granparents first bought the land to build the beach home on and we all danced around the plot, this tree was there. I remember when I accidentally launched a bracelet into the bay, that tree was our marker for where we started searching. We have swung on this tree, climbed up it, posed in front of it, sat in its shade, and now this southern oak is growing into true Southern Beauty.

I have a few New Year Resolutions, one of which is to learn to savor the moments of life. I learned last year how fickle life can be, and while plans for the future are both necessary and good, the future means nothing if we cannot learn to not only exist, but be in the present. It will be hard to focus on each day and treat it a treasure, and to avoid fretting about the next day and month and upcoming years- especially since I'm a major fretter- but I sure will try. And starting today, I can't wait to get re-acquainted with my sneaky old friend Time.