Climbing the Mountain of Life

This morning's commitment was delayed by one hour. One hour is such a gift when it comes out of the blue.

Instead of frantically trying to squeeze in all-that-I-could-do before 8:00 a.m., I have taken my time and let the morning take me wherever I ended up going.

My voyage began with a cup of coffee and the habit of checking out the blogs that I follow to see if anyone had any new updates to read.

I started at the top of my list. 'Anna' didn't have any new updates so I reread her last post, only to discover what I missed the first time that I read it. She had written a 'guest post' over at 'Momastery.com' ... which led me to another post written by another blog author.

I read the post "2011 Lesson #2 : Don’t Carpe Diem" ...

It was a post that was written over a year ago. I could have read the words at any point in time and appreciated them. But reading them this morning? When I was feeling just a tad regretful over the week that I just 'spent'? It was Divine timing.

I was an imperfect daycare provider last week. I did not live in the moment. I got frustrated. I want the kids to learn to play independently, use their imaginations, learn strategies to get along and have fun with each other. I do everything in my power to encourage all of the above. Yet last week, I was impatient. I am working with one & two year olds for heavens sake!

At the end of the week, I looked back and all I saw was my imperfections. I didn't seize the day. I did my best to seize the moments along the way, but did I savor last week's voyage? Not in the way I expect of myself.

Then I read this post "Don't Carpe Diem" ... and at the end I gave myself permission to be imperfect in my role as a daycare provider. It is like climbing Mount Everest. Every moment, of every day ... do I want to shout to the world "I love being a daycare provider!!"? No. But at the end of my voyage, and even at the end of my days, weeks and years ... I do want to say "I love having been a daycare provider".

I want to take enough moments within each day to seize that moment in time so that the children I watch over feel a sense of me liking what I do. Maybe not every moment of every day. But I want them to know that I do love what I do and savor the good moments wherever we find them so that they can carry that forward with them throughout their lives.

As I climb this mountain called 'life', I hope to tether myself to safe and secure spots along the way ... so that if I fall (and I inevitably will), I do not want to take anyone with me.