Stop. Look. Listen.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.

Most of you know that I didn't really say that.
This guy gets the credit for those words of wisdom.

But although the words might not be mine, the sentiment is something that I've been feeling full force lately. This past month in particular. Let me elaborate.

A couple of weeks ago we passed the midway mark of the school year.
For those of you who are keeping track, you know what that means.
My daughter is (over) halfway through her senior year.
My daughter will graduate in three and a half months.
106 days to be precise.
For those of you who are keeping track, you know what that means I'll be doing in about 186 days:

I probably won't look this pretty.

We've had our fair share of "lasts" lately.
Last weekend she was in her eighth and final show with the community theatre she's been involved with for the past four years. Watching her perform in her last show and take her final bow was bittersweet, to put it mildly. And then, when the cast called for anyone in the audience who'd ever performed in a show with the theatre to come on stage for a bow and Thing 2 ran down and grabbed her and they hugged and cried and then held hands and took her very last bow together?

I ordered her cap and gown last month.
I blocked out a few weekends in the summer for her college orientation.
I booked a room in her college town for Parent's Weekend in September.
I started looking at next fall's calendar penciling in the weekends between August and Christmas that I anticipated getting to see her.
There were three.

For the past few years I've been thinking I needed to collect photos from her High School years to put in an album but have been putting it off because "there's plenty of time."
It's time.
I've been looking ahead at March and April's calendars which are quickly filling up with choir concerts and rehearsals and (more) musicals and end of the year events and know that I will blink and it will be May.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.

Thing 2 got braces on Monday and in the hour she was back in that orthodontist chair aged about four years. I think she's grown over three inches since summer. She's starting to walk and talk and reason like a teenager, which in a little over two months she will be.

The past month has brought exciting developments to the blog and my writing endeavors.
Like big big developments.
I can't disclose any details today (or am just choosing to keep my mouth shut, which, believe me, is a very difficult task) but I'm excited to fill you all in soon. Very soon.

Suffice it to say that for the past two weeks things have been flying at me daily and I've suddenly found myself with things to do. Important things. Things that matter. Things that have to get done today.
I've been multi-tasking like a boss: returning emails in the car on the way to Thing 1's perfromances (riding shotgun, obviously); writing with a pencil in an old school composition book in the dark theatre (using my phone for a flashlight) while I've waited for the rehearsals to be over; making lists of tasks to get done in my head while pouring wine and chattering away to thirsty audience members at the concession bar; checking email and trying to update social media after midnight post-show recap discussions with my exhausted-but-too-hopped-up-on-adreniline-to-sleep daughter (one of my favorite things); choir concerts and (other) shows and scholarship applications to proofread and groceries to be bought and posts to attempt to write. No lie, yesterday I threw a load of just underwear in the wash so I didn't have to take the time to fold real clothes, and so that at least when we were all wearing dirty clothes this week our undies would be clean.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.

The next two weekends look blissfully quiet.
This weekend we don't have anything on the calendar, which means a movie or maybe a karaoke night where we can all regroup and just sit and be still together (unless we sing karaoke and then let me tell you, we move. Nah, not really. Just me. When I sing "I Will Survive." Because honestly, how can you not move when you sing that song I ask you?).
Next weekend I have a date to see Mamma Mia with my favorite 18 year old. We'll grab dinner before the show and gab about celebrities and college. She's one of my favorite girlfriends and one of the best people I know.

I know that soon it won't be so easy to grab dinner and a show with her.

So I'm making Ferris's words my mantra for the next few months.

Because while I can't stop life from moving fast, I can certainly take a moment to look around.

I don't want to miss a thing.

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