Just DO IT!

Shew it’s really been a long time since I’ve done this! And fun fact, I “wrote” this as I walked this morning. I’m walking and I’m thinking all these things in my head and my first thought is how this could be a good post. You know, like just on socials, IG or FB. But then I know what’s floating around my mind is going on too long so it probably just needs to be a blog post. Every time I think that what happens is I continue letting my mind wander and I have all these great thoughts, usually when I’m driving, walking, taking a shower, etc. but never when I’m actually sitting down to write. Which is why I don’t ever post! Because when I sit down to focus on writing it’s forced and I can’t come up with anything. So this morning I realized that I could basically talk to my phone and dictate this and then piecemeal it all together when I am ready to sit down and write. And here we are.

So I was thinking this morning just about random things. We talk about our memories and you know we think about when our kids were born or when we got married or when we moved in that house or when we started that job. All these things that were in the past and we just can’t believe it’s been that long. But what about the things that are more recent that aren’t even that far in the past but yet they are still in the past. Like the song I was just listening to on Spotify, some well-known artist was singing, but as I was listening, I thought about a local church and thought, you know this sounds like something that they would do during their praise and worship. Then of course one thought leads to another and so then I started thinking about a time that we went to that church. We know the pastor and his wife, met them years before serving at another church and now they have their own. We went there with familiarity, but the funny thing is, we’ve been to their church but have never seen the inside of the church. Why you ask, well it is because we went in, you guessed it, 2020! So when we attended the services were outside in the parking lot and we sat on the back of David’s truck. I just thought how crazy it is that this is such a fresh memory to me like it didn’t happen that long ago when in reality it’s been three years.

Does that happen to you too? You think of these things that you feel like just happened and then you realized how long it’s truly been. I had something come up in my phone’s photo memories last week. It was a picture of us with a couple from Northern Virginia that we met at a brewery. We went there to listen to music and it turned out that the people we were listening to were mutual friends of both of ours. That’s how we connected and we haven’t seen them since but we stay connected on social media. It has been two years I think yet it’s a fresh memory and I can’t believe it was that long ago.

If I had taken a longer walk this morning I’m sure I’d have come up with more of these memories. But the point of all this is just to point out how often we say things like, “man time goes by fast” or “life’s too short” or “go live for today”. We all do that right? I know we do! Even those of us who are really well intentioned about it. I’m not a big planner, very spontaneous, other than the standard things like I have to get up every weekday and work from 8-5. Things like that are obviously planned but I’m terrible about making actual plans. Ask my friends and family and they will agree!  I prefer if you call me and say “hey I’m doing such and such today you interested?” I may have an idea in my head of something I want to do this weekend but I don’t hold fast to the idea that is exactly what I’m going to do. So if you ask me to do anything a couple days in advance or longer, I’m probably not gonna commit.

So I feel like I do a pretty good job of living in the moment and living for the day but in reality when I think back on these things I mentioned earlier, well, I don’t. I don’t at all because I can’t even fathom the fact that it is almost August 2023. How is that even possible?! I don’t know where I’m going with us just what’s on my mind today. Maybe it’ll prompt action on my part to do better or maybe it’ll prompt action on your part. It is just food for thought I guess.

Life really is so freaking short why do we just get up every day and do what we’ve always done? There is so much out here to be grateful for, so much out here to see and do and explore, so much life to be lived and even those of us with the best of intentions have these moments where we’re like wait a minute, how is it Thursday already? How is it August already? If you were blessed enough to have woken up this morning and you have the ability to just live, then DO IT!

~Carla

PS – This was a much better way to get a blog post done.

PSS – I realized that when I talk I use the word “like” way too much and this required a lot of editing. Must be more mindful of that!