• Fall asleep early and wake up happy.
• Always, always stop and breathe in the roses.
• Forget quickly when someone has hurt you.
• Get up when someone pushes you down.
• Say “HI!” to everyone who passes.
• Let eating blueberry pancakes be the highlight of your morning!
• Cuddle often and long with those who love you best.
• Give fierce hugs, sloppy kisses and free grins!
• Stare at the harvest moon like you’ve never seen it before.
• Whatever you choose to do, do that thing with ALL of your energy.
• Feel safe and live well, because you are cared for by Someone BIG who has your best interests in His mind.

Its the end of September and the third official full week of school. The weeks are concise, formulaic and have routine bred in them – they have innate cadence. The days, weeks are racing by like the pages of a flipbook and I am beginning to see my life and my kids’ lives accelerate. It is as if I am watching in time-lapsed motion speed.

Life does this, speed by, as I age, I am finding. Everything gets, well, fast.

Time stretches as a child. A little girl can live a day within an hour and a lifetime in an afternoon. This child wakes up in the morning and knows that there is an entire world of possibilities laid out for the day. But this little girl also yearns to grow up, make her own choices and be in charge of her time. Life begins to pick up its pace, like a runner in her last mile of a race.

Right now, for me, time is beginning to quicken. I know it in all surety. This is adulthood.

Last week, on the stairmill at the gym (the ones that look like escalators), I realized that when I paid attention to the step, step, step of my feet, my time went unbearably slow. I was counting the minutes and portions of minutes down until I was done. But I realized, that with anything, when I let my mind wander (planning our trip to England, writing my blog in my head), the time jetisoned by, zooming through the minutes.

So this is it, to live in each step, step, step, like a baby girl. I should live my lifetimes in an afternoon and pay detailed attention to the placement of my feet, what I do and what I say; playing with my children, cooking for my husband, spending good time with a friend, taking care of the things that God has placed in front of me – joying in this life. I shouldn’t yearn for life to move on, I shouldn’t wait for the next day or month to happen. I cannot change time or the way I age, but I can alter how I see each day. Living in my today-step: this is the only cure for adulthood.

This is not me. This is my friend, Laurie, in Florence a few weeks ago. She is spending a month in Italy taking some classes with her university. (Can I live vicariously through her?)

But isn’t this a great picture? She looks so small next to this large, deep river and the sun has already set behind the buildings. The city still glows.

It made me think that we are all small. I am small, next to the river, next to God. But I usually act big. I act big when I speak harshly to my husband or when I judge somebody before I meet them. I act big when I worry and wrongly assume that God doesn’t in fact think about ME thousands of times a day. I act big when I go through my day and don’t thank Him for all my blessings.

Socrates famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living. This daily blogging is actually creating some sort of smallish revolution in my own heart. It has caused me to think regularly and often about my own life, about my children and husband, about who I am next to God. I am small in this world but my hope is that I will continually be in a state of examination; I will recognize that to God, I am loved and important and big.