Lookin through the Floorboards of Life

Do you ever stop in your tracks in the midst of your busy life and wonder where it all went? Do you ever just stop yourself in a moment and go, ‘Wow, how did I get here?’

I do this quite often as a person who hates time to fly and is constantly wishing I could freeze certain moments and not let them slip through my fingers into the floorboards of life.

Growing up, I have always been surrounded by tons of friends. In college we were queens of ‘girl night.’ Yeeeeaaa PAT OBRIENS WHAAAA??? We dominated that place and the jukebox playing good ole classics like ‘Ay Bay Bay!’ (yes that was a classic) Missing a ‘girl night’ was like violating a law!……….. fast forward……… tick….. tick… tick……I have now bee bopped out the door of Pat O’Briens and into my good friend’s home for her baby shower….. wait…. baby shower???? OK now life has officially passed me by at warp speed.

I sat at this shower feeding my beautiful almost 3 month old Godson Ryder and thought, wow, when did we all get here? I look around the room and see my best friends chasing their children at this house where we used to cheers in jello shots!…… well we may still do this too.. ha! I just sat and took this moment in; little Ryder in my arms, studly lucas kissing sweet Briley smack on the lips, Owen running running circles around all of us, friends talking about their upcoming weddings and others with bellies full of their little ones waiting to enter our crazy world!! *if you do not know who the hell I am talking about – do not fret- they are only the future of america….and the future dream team* I just watched as everyone was discussing their little ones excitedly and realizing how our conversations have shifted into this new phase in our life. I wanted to stop this moment in its tracks because I fear tomorrow these kids will be 15yrs old telling us we know nothing and how we are totally uncool, as we sit around a table drunk on margaritas playing bunko. AAHHH!! never! The dream team was the epitemy of cool..duh! 😉 *if you do not know who the dream team is…. you should probably fret because it means you weren’t as cool as us……..*

This type of scene (seeing my friends and their new babes) used to freak me out. I used to feel like someone standing with their feet planted firmly, while the race of life zoomed by me. I just could not embrace this new change for some reason. It’s scary to see us warping into these actual adults where these little people depend on us to mold their futures. I throw a tantrum in my head and think ‘ I don’t wanna grow up, I don’t waaaannna.’ I want to just stay in limbo here and not move forward!

But recently, I have seen things with a new light. As I sit holding my teeny most-adorable-handsome-good-luck-ever- finding- a cuter godson, I look around the room and hear the new conversations going on among friends and I see their faces. They are different now.. It is hard to put their faces into words… It’s like ya know the face you get when you put on a pair of pants you haven’t worn in awhile and you find $20 in the back pocket……yeeeea like gold that little $20… yea you know what I’m sayin.. ANYWAY…. All I’m saying is their faces look different. They look like they have found true happiness.. something has completed a part of their hearts that they didn’t know existed. It is something I have never recognized on my friend’s faces. It’s just a different happiness that looks like a proud, overflowing, overwhelming, selfless happiness. Like they found something they have waited their whole life for and here it was in this pint sized little person happiness. Like I wanna bottle that jazz and wear it everyday I’m jealous happiness!

I always thought kids were pretty scary individuals. I always looked at them as the end of my personal dreams instead of the beginning of a new one. I was ‘that girl’ when people asked if I wanted to hold their new little one I shriveled up and ever so graciously declined. I feared I would crush them, or they would realize I was a “I love baby poser” and expose me by ear drum bursting screaming!! I was ‘that girl’ when I saw a room with even 1 child, I would veer the other way for fear of an awkward encounter with lack of the ‘natural baby dialect’ people bust out like a 2nd language and the little human seems to understand perfectly but is chinese to me! Point is.. children were like little aliens to me and I to them… I felt like some people were just born with this natural ability to understand these aliens and I was not one of them. But, ya know, living in the south I get asked frequently when I am going to settle down and re-produce one of these beings. Instead of the “I have no idea if I am equipped with the manual for these aliens and I don’t know if they will even like me if I do.” I respond with, “Oh, I’m sure sometime in the future! I can’t wait!” It’s the answer everyone wants to hear from a female because it should be the most natural. They don’t want to hear the ‘I’m not sure if I’m cut out to be a mother,’ answer where I have to insert pathetic, I feel sorry for her look, they will give me in response.

But now….. .maybe now I see things in a different lens when I look through the eyes of my best friends. I see a look about them that is something I know I have never felt myself. It is one I feel I work so hard to get towards and teeter on actually grasping it and here they are swimming in it. Now, you will see me surrounded by these little aliens all the time and I am the first one to grab them when I enter a room and the first one to smother them with love love love. I have now learned I cannot crush them and I do not have to learn this ‘criss cross apple sauce hands in your lap,’ business and I can just say ‘hey dude.’ They no longer scare me and I actually am now ‘that girl’ that is obsessively taking photos of them and saying things like, “Omg Lucas did the cutest thing the other day……” Like really did I just now shift into ‘that girl!!!” Maybe… But I kinda like it and I’m sorta diggin my new alien nieces and nephs these days.

Now am I about to go and conquer the world by being the new Kate plus 8?? I think not.. But at least I see now what happiness these little creatures bring to the world and how unique that happiness is.

I guess while I travel through this world I will quit telling it what I want and who I am going to be because apparently it always winds up surprising me. God knows me too well, now if only I knew myself just as well.

Instead of being terrified at things passing so quickly, I am embracing each moment and looking down through the floorboard of life and realize it’s nothin but sunshine and the foundation of sweet memories to come