Time

Photo by McGuinness Photography

I came across this stunning photo today on an etsy search. I was thinking about the moon for some reason. About how sometimes the moon is just so painfully beautiful. I was trying to figure out why the word "painfully" came to mind. It's gorgeous. Why painful?

Because it is so fleeting. I always wish I could have a camera and photography skills at the ready when those moons appear. Then, like this photographer, I could capture a bit of that beauty and keep it with me. That never happens, so instead I stop and stare (or keep driving and steal glances every few seconds) and try to etch every detail in my mind: the colors, always SO bright and so unearthly; the sheer immense size of those amazing moonrises; the dark splotches of valley and plateau - I feel like I can almost see those moon rovers the astronauts left up there.... and inevitably, just as I think I'm wrapping my mind around it, it has changed. The colors dull, the size diminishes, the valleys and plateaus become less pronounced, and soon all that's left is a white, everyday light in the sky. It's to the point now that I almost don't want to look because I get so overwhelmed by the fact that I will never be able to see that sight again. Gorgeous moonrises will come again, but never that moonrise, it will never look just like that again.

Of course I then have to really make the logical leap and realize that this applies to everything in life that I love. My boys, my beautiful boys, in every wonderful and amazing thing they do there is a bit of sadness because they will never do that same thing again. My three year old might never say "marsh-meddow" instead of "marshmallow" again. He already says "remote control" instead of "imo-cono-trol" I almost teared up when I heard the word roll flawlessly and correctly of his silly little tongue.

This weekend I looked at pictures of my husband and me with our first born on a day trip we took to the mountains. It was only three and a half years ago, but we looked so young! And it struck me that right now, today, this is fleeting too! I'm so happy and none of it will last forever.

And it's all right and good and okay. I remember once, my best friend and I were sitting on beanbags, sunbathing on my parent's deck. We'd spent the previous day sunbathing at the river, later moving on to parties with friends, woke that day around 10, and were preparing to start the whole thing over again. I think it was the summer before my senior year in high school. Anyway, she made a comment about how we should appreciate it because life would never be quite like that again. I doubt that truer words have ever passed through seventeen year old lips. I am so grateful that she made that observation, because I did appreciate it, and that memory was not lost. To this day I can go back to that place in time and be grateful that I was there to experience it.

So today and everyday I try to take a quick look around and take a quick inventory of all the amazing and beautiful sights and sounds and experiences I'm having, because I know they won't last forever, and all I will have is the memories and the knowlege that I have been truly blessed. It has made looking at a beautiful moon slightly less painful.