Picking Daylillies

Things have changed a bit.

I am sure if you happen to have been reading for awhile, you have noticed that.

I blog less. Scratch that, I blog when I want to. I took my ads down (more on that later). My days are fuller. I am on Twitter less.

And the long and the short of it is that I am busier. And I just am. Here. Now. In the moment.

I am fuller.

I had a great email exchange with a dear friend the other day. I had noticed that she, too, had been blogging less and wrote to her to make sure she was okay.

The long and the short of her answer was that for a variety of reasons not at all related to blogging, she had found herself taking a break.

And that while she did, she realized just how much she had missed actually living. I got it immediately. I love this place. This community. This voice.

But it's amazing how quickly it became an obligation. A "I have to go write a post." A thing. An obsession. Okay, that is too strong a word. But an obligation, yes.

For me, a change in career forced me to step back. To slow down. To focus on what needed to be focused on.

It all kind of hit me this weekend. As I snapped pictures of the kids running through the sprinkler, Caleb pointed to a flower.

Mom! You should take a picture of that flower. Look how the water is just sitting on it. Like it's waiting for something to happen.

And he was so very right.

Sometimes, I think in the land of social media, we find ourselves looking for that moment. That time to observe. That irony. That humor. That event. I shouldn't say "we," because some might beg to differ.

But I know I did.

Sometimes it was great. Sometimes looking for the moments in life allowed me to see moments I might have otherwise missed. And sometimes it was just the opposite. Sometimes I was so busy looking for the proverbial trees that I was missing the forest.

So, this summer I am enjoying the forest and the trees.

Along the way, I have begun picking daylillies.

I come home from work an pick one. The fullest, richest, prettiest one.

I know it will wilt by the next morning.

And that's just fine.

Because there will be another one there to fill its place.

Some are better than the others. Some just sit there and are gone the next day. And some do nothing for me at all.

Kind of like life. But I am going to take each one as it is, as it comes. And sometimes, I won't. Sometimes I'll miss one. That's okay, too. Because that is what it was meant to be. Nothing more, nothing less.