On a Sunday evening in November, I stood on lakeshore and listened. I was about to start a new job the next day and was keenly feeling that bend in time, the one you stand in when one chapter is closing and another about to begin. 

This bend in time felt particularly weightless. The moon rose higher in a purple sky. Crickets chattered. Water washed shore – the cleansing, hushed swish-swash of a laundry machine. My ears grew cold. I turned to Tommy and Snoop and said, “I feel happy right now.” I’ve been saying that often lately. It’s part of my efforts to turn over a new leaf.

We jogged back to the car, down a trail where the trees seemed to press closer and closer as the sun slipped away. And then we were driving home – to pizza and sleep.

How is it that happiness is so often retrospective? We spend our days hurried and stressed, wishing we were somewhere else, doing something else. Rarely conscious of the moment. Rarely appreciative for the minute of reprieve or beauty or laughter. 

It’s human nature to want more of tomorrow. I’m not sure why that is. I’m not sure why we can’t recognize joy until we’re looking backwards. It’s as if it takes distance to be able to stop and say, “Oh, I was really happy then. That was a good day.”

Looking back now, some of the days I smile over most were the ones spent crammed in a freshman dorm room with Bekah Robinson. Imagine a life with no air conditioning, communal bathrooms, and cafeteria food (here’s looking at you, Burrito Wednesday), and that pretty much sums up Year 1 at WVU. 

Despite roasting in August, the good memories pile up like scribbled French notes – evenings spent playing cards and complaining about the music choices at the frat house up the street. I despised chemistry lab and would rush back to our room afterwards to meet Bek and watch twenty minutes of Downton Abbey on a laptop. I wish I could visit those nineteen-year-old kids, but college is just one of those things that comes once. You can’t go back.

I think about the earliest days of marriage, when Tommy and I had the whole month of July free and got popcorn and a Redbox movie every single night. Those are the seasons that it’s easy to nod at from a distance – appreciatively, a little sadly. 

It takes effort to cultivate appreciation for this moment, for today. Recognizing that we’re happy in the moment just says – “I don’t take this moment for granted. I’m grateful.” It doesn’t just extend to moments, but people, too. 

I’m trying to teach myself to search for those moments. To be able to catch them in the act. Savor them before letting them go, fireflies in my hands. Whether that’s fog steeping over the fields in the morning. A particularly sweet cup of coffee at my desk. Five minutes of Tommy and Snoop wrestling over sticks in the backyard. It’s these moments that build a life. They exist, every single day, if only we look for them. 

I think about that verse in James – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 

I want to see God’s gifts for what they are. Don’t want to miss one because I was too focused on surviving to the weekend. I have a habit of looking at what I don’t have rather than what I’ve been given. Walking blind, my senses switched off, presents left unopened. 

Even as I’ve prepared to post this, it’s been a rough evening. There was just a small string of reminders that took me back to a place of heartache and broken friendships. Of disappointment and lingering grief. Feeling sick to my stomach, I returned to my bottomless sink of dishes and Tommy called for me to come outside.

“I don’t want to.”
“Put on my shoes. Just really quick.”

And I went, because I always do. Breathed air, cold and clarifying. It smelled like snow. Even in Dallas, the air can smell like snow.

So, that’s my new leaf. To stop when I recognize a gift. To give it a name – I feel happy right now. I’m grateful. 

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