See Now.

Why do I have to use the scissors to cut the tape off this dispenser? It’s designed to tear off easily on these little pointy things. Annoying.

Should I wrap these gifts in one box or separate them so he has two presents to open?

Where did I put the scissors? How do I always manage to lose them?

“Mom!” my son yelled. His eyebrows raised and his tone firm.

“What?” I said shaken from my mental dialogue.

“I asked you three times what to put on this cut.”

“What cut?” I asked.

“What do you mean what cut? I just told you! I have a cut on my foot and you said ‘You do?’ and then I asked if I should put a Band-Aid on it and you said ‘Yes.’

“I did?” This was not ringing a bell. How long had Karson been sitting there?

He continued, “Then I asked you if I should put anything on my cut before the Band-Aid and you’re not answering me anymore.”

My hands ceased moving. I held the lame tape dispenser feeling a bit dysfunctional myself. I willed my mind to catch up with the present.

“I’m sorry, Buddy. Even though I was answering you, I wasn’t really listening. Now, let me see your foot.”

It’s not the only incident of multi-tasking malfunction I’ve experience this holiday season. Unfortunately, my distracted and poorly executed interactions are piling up faster than gifts under my tree.

I swerved right into a retail parking lot from the left lane because the conversation on my phone was trumping my defensive driving skills.

I unloaded groceries from the trunk only to realize I forgot the one thing I went to purchase.

I clicked off the computer tab of a work project to open Amazon to search for the gift that’s been eluding me.

I’m distracted in the present.

And when I see pictures from Christmases past my heart hurts as I realize how quickly chubby toddler cheeks have given way to little girl faces. How gifts of blocks and rocking horses have changed to those of video games and craft supplies. Ornaments with globs of dried glue and too much glitter remind me of sweet little hands that now color inside the lines.

The present will soon be the past.

I don’t want to miss life in the future as it plays out in front of my face.

I want to appreciate moments as they happen.

I want to live in the now.

To stop my train of thought and still my hands. To look. To see. To notice.

To pause my typing fingers and wink at my youngest child and study the way her whole face squishes up in such an adorable way as she tries to wink in return.

To look my oldest in the eye and laugh with him as he recounts the antics of the boys at his lunch table.

To hold my second grader’s hand as we walk to the mailbox and to remember how soft her mitten feels in my cold, bare hand.

To feel. To smell. To taste.

To watch. To laugh. To hold.

To notice the now.

To see the present as the gift it truly is.

 

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This post is part of the Five Minute Friday community where bloggers are challenged to write for approximately 5 minutes about a topic based on a one-word prompt. This week’s word: NOW