Never too late to be intentional

On the bookshelf in my bedroom sits a frame containing a yellowed Family Circus cartoon. The drawing shows the disheveled mom trying to corral her four small children. Meanwhile, a well-meaning - but not terribly helpful - elderly lady gives the stereotypical advice: Enjoy them every minute. Before you can turn around, they’ll be grown.”

I’ve had that picture for more than two decades, probably when the fourth of my seven children arrived. And while I likely smirked when I received it, there is a reason that advice continues to apply. Because it is true.

It is why we say “the days are long, but the years are short.”

It is why we say “time flies when you are having fun.” Heck, time flies even when you aren’t having fun. Ask any mom.

But whether you are in the midst of changing diapers non-stop or building a career or just trying to get by, the days can slip by seemingly in the blink of an eye. Followed by months going by in a blur. And before you know it, years have passed.

This is where intentionality comes into play. Unless we intentionally make the effort to enjoy the moment or to reach out to someone, time -- and life -- can slip by so quickly.

And that is how I recently ended up in Texas, despite less-than-perfect circumstances like a pandemic.

As my 25th anniversary approached, I knew I didn’t want to buy my husband, Jon, yet another gift that I would have to dust or wash or add to the clutter at our house.

Instead, I reached out to the best man from our wedding, Mike, who had been my husband’s college roommate, to reconnect. It had been 23 years since we had seen him in person, when my husband had served as the best man in Mike’s wedding.

While now is not ideal for just about anything, everything from travel itinerary to days off from work lined up. So last weekend, the three of us caught up on two decades of our lives, from vacations to jobs, even stupid vehicle purchases. We discovered that all our kids are avid swimmers, some at the collegiate level.

In the end, it was like we hadn’t missed a beat, much less decades. There was some regret that we hadn’t been able to see each other’s kids grow up and many birthdays and anniversary had been missed. But we left with an appreciation and a hopefulness, knowing that we had reconnected and would do better in the future to maintain contact.

Afterward, I wondered how we managed to miss so many years of each other’s lives, but it was never intentional. It is just life.

Personally, we got busy raising kids, working and volunteering, and maintaining a house. Our friend Mike was busy raising his own family, moving around the country and serving more than a dozen tours overseas during his 25-year military career.

As my husband said on the way home, perhaps this was the first time we could have connected and we needed to appreciate that it happened at all.

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it: There is never a perfect time to do something. If you wait for it to be perfect, it will never happen.

We could have waited for the pandemic to be over, but who knows when or if things will return to normal. We could have waited for all of us to retire, but who knows when or if that will happen. If I think I have a risky lifestyle by riding my bike down a highway with semis barreling by us at 70 mph, that’s relatively safe compared to our friend who flies helicopters for the border patrol catching drug runners.

I am not saying you need to hop on a plane to visit your long-lost aunt in another state or drain your savings to see your childhood friend across the globe.

Perhaps it is a phone call to an elderly neighbor to let them know you are thinking of them. Maybe it is taking a dessert to that mom who hasn’t had five minutes to wash her hair. Or just dropping a card in the mail to your friend to let them know you are thinking of them.

Finding a hand-written note in the mailbox is 10-times better than a stack of bills or election fliers.

Like I said, there is never a perfect time ... there is only time ... time to be intentional.