Typically I’m livin’ each day in the fast lane, neither smelling roses or catching a sunset on purpose. One feels like they must in order to keep up with lifes demands. Too often we’re drifting through the experience and then mentally reliving it as though the memory was the high point. The blur is real and it becomes much more real when you buck the system and truly enjoy a moment.
Last night was one of those moments. When you’re in it you don’t care about thinking fondly on it later and rehashing it over and again. You’re like a desert dry sponge and the next 90 minutes is your ocean to take in as much liquid as you can. As though every inch of you is bursting with joy and there’s no way to contain it.
My daughters and I haven’t gone bowling since the covid fiasco so we figured now was the time. But there’s more: mini-golf too! And all glow in the dark which, whatever, fun for the kids I ‘spose. We did the sign in, got the shoes and the lights went down.. in a good way. In a glowy way. After Lexis tried four different pairs of shoes on and I entered our names it was on.
The music was pumping and these girls started dancing. Each turn somebody did something to make the others laugh whether dance steps, tickles or pretending to fall down (something we often do at home). Everyone was smiling and nobody really cared about all the gutter balls or low scores or the yahoo eight lanes over, cheering his girlfriend on excessively loudly.
It was in these first ten or so minutes that I realized how amazing this exact moment is. I wanted to bottle it but I also didn’t care as I had no other thought in the world except that in this moment I am so glad to be alive. Everything in the universe was either on pause or never mattered to begin with. I didn’t want those seconds, those minutes to end.
And they didn’t! 2 games later it was time to ditch the cheesy shoes and grab our balls (and our putters). Don’t ya hate it when there’s people playing in front of you holding you up and people behind you making you wanna rush through? Thank you, Mr Covid because there wasn’t another soul around, just us. And the joy of the evening only got better as I enjoy mini-golfing over bowling any day of the week.
After the eighteenth hole and a turn on the claw machine our moment of course ended. Strangely enough there wasn’t really even that drop off the edge feeling of now it’s back to normal life. We were in such a good place that it just kind of stayed with us the rest of the night.
Times like these don’t come along often at all. You can’t plan them. They just happen. And in lieu of the recent hospitalization of my Lexis and the ongoing concerns with both girls being in those moments and sharing their beautiful spirits just filled me like I didn’t know I needed. I am so absolutely very blessed, like that bloated sponge, holding it all in for as long as I can.
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