BEAUTIFUL MOMENTS. I’ve come to believe we are each a collection of moments. Moments in our lives that etch our hearts and don’t really seem to leave. They are moments in time that feel pure, calm, and true. Sometimes we experience them and know they will happen again, other times we work towards them and get to experience their peak, and every so often, they take us completely by surprise and all we can do is hope we realize the moment when we’re in it. After the moment happens, whether you know it right then or reflect back on it later, I find there is always a dance of holding onto these moments, while simultaneously not agonizing over why they couldn’t last longer. These moments though, we all hope are moments of joy and bliss, and many of them likely are, but I also think there are some moments so beautiful they hurt.
I think about my moments. I hope everyone has a few. There are definitely those we learn to rest in and appreciate in the ordinary of every-day life, but I think so many of our beautiful moments come from a feeling we can’t quite put our finger on – or quite the opposite and they so naturally light a fire within us.
For me, it’s slaloming on glass before the lake front has had their morning coffee or again at golden hour when the sun has begun to dip behind the trees and I can see it’s colors reflect on the rippled water I get to travel on. It’s ripping powder on a blue bird day as the wind turns my cheeks rosy and I descend down the mountain in awe of the nature that surrounds me. It’s the outdoor shower in late summer that sends chills down my spine as the water steams over my face – I turn my head slightly to peer at the green leaves moving through the wind, touched by rays of light in the august air. I know I get to experience these every so often, and yet not often enough where they ever lose their spark – they remind me to be where my feet are.
Then there are the moments that we come across and know they might not happen again: to recognize the moment as it’s happening and savor it is where the gift lays. Every time I saw the face of a family member or friend when running the 126th Boston Marathon I felt the joy of completing the route I’d watched runners race my whole life – thinking back to 10-year-old me high-fiving runners at Mile 9 outside our local pizza shop while I bounced on the trampoline. It was stumbling into the deep blue waters in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean while it down-poured as a rainbow still graced the sky. It was scoring 1,000 points as a Division I college athlete after spending years working to excel in something I loved. I knew those moments were special when I was in them and I can still feel the joy of being present to them.
And there are also moments so beautiful they hurt. I think some moments ache and that in itself is beautiful – leaving a place you love, sleeping in your childhood bed, losing a pet who’s watched you grow up, looking at someone and knowing in that moment it won’t ever be the same again between you two. I wonder, how can moments like that can possibly exist at the same time they are beautiful? I’m learning it’s possible to hold space for both – “I feel x AND y” even if they may seem contradictory. You can be sad about leaving a place, but excited for the next adventure. You can feel grief over what you thought was in front of you and grateful that just maybe there is something else waiting for you. Embracing the duality of emotions in these moments allows us to be present to them and trust that more will come back to us.
In different seasons of life we experience moments – putting yourself out into the world and knowing you might be rejected – in friendships, in jobs, in love. Some seasons may feel braver than others, with a little more confidence to go for it, less afraid of what others might think or what we will think of ourselves if we fail. And yet, all we can do is be present to those moments and drown ourselves in them while we have them. Once they pass, savor them for a bit, even write them down so you can come back to them someday. But then lay them down and let them go because there’s nothing we can do to mess up what’s meant for us.
These moments touch our soul and it is bittersweet that they never seem to last as long as we’d like them too. But I’ve found these moments are a chance to slow down, to take in all that surrounds us and to remind ourselves how beautiful it all can be.
Book Recommendation:
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano is the story of four sisters (think Little Women) and a man, who happens to be a basketball player, and the ways his past and present choices change each of their lives. The story spans over generations following a rift in the family that nearly severs the once inseparable bond between the girls. It reminds me that there are many layers to a person, and how we can discover “what’s possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.” I thought it was a well-crafted and touching story that encapsulated its own set of beautiful moments.