You’ll know when things are good, your days will go by too quickly.
It’s June. I saw my first firefly of the season last weekend, the hydrangeas are blooming (I promise you’ll actually care about this in your 30s) and the sun sets so late. There’s much to love, much to feel free about. I looked back at my journals for the beginning of June, expecting to read lots of lessons about freedom and fleeting days. And sure there was one very summery lesson about being drenched in a rainstorm and there’s this one in the title that I love, about the days going by too quickly when they are good. But I also discovered a surprising number of notes on working through anxiety, having to live the questions when you want the answers and using criticism to grow.
Those things might not sound like summer, but they still are. Here’s what I found.
-You pay less attention when you are comfortable. So do new things or switch up your routine, experience things in ways that you don’t normally so that you are present and take notice of the lesson of the memory.
-It took me all these years to realize that preparedness might be anxiety, or a coping for it.
-Sometimes the things that feel the worst are the best for us. (In regards to working through fear and anxiety.)
-I keep wanting to know the answer when living the question might be the entire point.
-I miss being 21, not from a social standpoint. But from an eager naive professional standpoint. I miss the opportunity to be 21 imagining what my career would be like at 29.
-Always remember that God is taking care of you. You don’t have to worry about all that you do.
-Criticism helps you grow. You need it.
-You’ll know when things are good, because your days will go by too quickly.
-I keep wanting to know the answer when living the question might be the entire point.
Here’s the thing. About those fireflies… what you see as a flicker of delight is serious (we’re talking life or death, potential end of lineage) work for them. Those hydrangeas… isn’t waiting for something to bloom kind of like living the question and learning the answer after all? And those late sunsets, you have to go through the long dark nights to really appreciate the long bright days.
It’s about this time of year that those long bright days start to pick up speed and go by too fast. Make sure you try something new and break out of your routine so that you can really be present and appreciate all the beauty and hard work that Summer has to offer us. In most cases the things we are delighting in have been working all year (or years) for this!