Happy Friday!
As a kid, I used to skim a lot of books, just so I could say I was finished.
Sometimes the book didn't grab me. Sometimes I'd rather be doing something else. Either way, the goal was to check it off the list.
And that's what I did.
Thinking about it now, I'm sure I missed a lot.
Beautiful stories I rushed past. Characters I never got to know deeply. Whole passages I could've carried with me, gone because I was so focused on getting to the last page.
Lately I've been thinking about life the same way. Like each of our lives is its own novel.
Not in the everything-happens-for-a-reason kind of way. More literally.
There are pages behind us that have already been written.
Some we wish we could read again and again and again.
Some we'd tear out if we could.
Some make more sense now than they did when we were living them.
Some we probably don't even remember living.
Some still make absolutely no sense at all.
Then there are all the pages ahead. The ones we spend so much time trying to read before we get there.
The ones we wish we could read NOW.
What's going to happen? Will it work out? Will I be okay? What's next?
I want to flip ahead so badly when I'm uncertain.
When there's a decision to make and I don't know which one is right.
A relationship I'm not sure whether to leave.
A trip I don't know whether to take. A company to build. A book to write.
We want to know the future so we can know which way to walk, but we can't. No matter how fast we read.
And maybe that's a good thing. Because today is still a blank page.
Well, sort of... part of it may already be penciled in.
There's a meeting on the calendar. A school pickup. A doctor's appointment. Dinner with a friend. A place you're supposed to be at 3:00.
But that's not the story. That's just the outline.
Because inside one ordinary hour, think about how much is still unwritten.
You can look someone in the eye or look at your phone.
Ask the question or stay quiet.
Call someone or think about calling them.
Hold onto something or let it go.
Connect. Disconnect. Reconnect.
Laugh.
Notice.
Change your mind.
There are so many tiny choices inside a day that, from the outside, looks like it was already planned.
The schedule tells us where the character goes, but it doesn't tell us who the character will be when they get there.
That's the part we get to participate in. There's only one page we actually get to live...
This one.
The page where you're reading this.
The page where someone you love is still here.
The page where your body is breathing without you asking it to.
The page where something might make you laugh in ten minutes that you don't know about yet.
The page where you have absolutely no idea how the story turns out.
The one thing we know is that one day, the book will end.
The sad part would be getting there and realizing we spent so much of the story trying to find out what happened next that we missed what was happening.
Today.
So let's not skim this Friday.
Let's read it slowly and with intention.
Be in the sentence, even in the pauses. Get to know the characters a little more. Feel what's happening while it's happening.
How much can we live on today's page?
The pages ahead will turn on their own.
We don't have to rush them.
Love,
Jenn