2.6.23 Seven Small Truths: Day Six

“I promise if you keep searching for everything beautiful in the world, you will eventually become it.” Tyler Kent White

I find that I am starting to worry that I have too much to say to squeeze into only seven days of small truths. There are so many things I have begun to realize about myself, and this life, and the people I am able to have as a central part of it. As funny as it seems, I feel like the more I look back on my string of days, of important milestones and golden moments, it is never the events I plan for that end up being the memories that stay.

DAY SIX Truth: It is the unplanned, unremarkable moments that leave the most significant impressions. Though I am the product of a million, magically curated memories … from walking down the aisle and long-planned vacations, to orchestrated family photos and budgeted-for purchases finally realized–none of those make the final cut in the reel of my wandering mind. Instead, I find myself eyes-closed-captured by the moments I wouldn’t even have used my imagination to invent.

What a curious thing to realize that to this day, after twenty years of being together, one of the best days I ever had with my husband was a random Tuesday the first year we were married. We both took off of work and did everything and nothing at all. We went to a movie … we visited a caramel apple store … we walked the Hallmark-esque downtown street of the small town we were married in. And yet I remember it all, every sun-dappled sidewalk step.

What a revelation to acknowledge that even after all this time, the best part of teaching is when I receive an email from a kiddo who just needs to know I’m still there, like I promised I would be.

It took some looking back to realize, that as fun as they were, it was not the elaborate birthdays or graduations we plotted and perfected, but the freezing sideways-sleet soccer games, the dessert dates after dance practices, and the chocolate milk and toast Saturdays that would occupy the grandest places of my heart.

I thank God for the unplanned impressions–for the four leaf clover moments and puddle splashes. I thank him for the curled kitty sleeping on my lap and the puppy kisses I never deserve, but get anyway. I thank Him for the elaborate high-five routines and inside jokes that we can’t even remember the start of. For the first stars to catch my wishes, and the sound of the wind in the trees.

Yes … here’s to the best moments you never saw coming.

Please tell me one of yours!

Elle