point of arrival…

6:40am. I’m actually starting to enjoy these early mornings.

The arctic freeze hit Toronto again and yesterday was just far too cold to take my munchkin out. So we put on our comfy pants and started the countdown to when daddy got home.

A few hours in, I had a thought – just how much of my life has been a countdown to something…

… to finishing high school
… to exams being over
… to graduating university
… to my wedding day
… to babies
… to my due date
… to when this horrid winter finally lifts
… and to the next phase of Ryan’s life

And in counting down, how many precious moments did I wish away?

If we’re always looking ahead, when do we ever arrive?

Right now, I don’t want to be anywhere else but here and now, with a beautiful baby boy who will never again be five weeks, three days and one hour old.

mxo

time…

Yesterday Ryan celebrated one month of being on this planet. While the days were long, very long at times, the month somehow flew by.

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A couple of weeks ago, when I was in the depths of new momma baby blues, a sage friend sent me these words:

The ancient Greeks had two concepts of time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is the inexorable grinding on of time without a foreseeable end—like when 5pm can’t come soon enough or that meeting just won’t end, or your kid won’t stop crying. Most of the time we find ourselves in chronos, wishing we could be on to the next thing. In contrast, kairos describes those rare and precious moments in which time seems to stand still—when we fall in love, when we are blissed out to our favourite song, or playing a sport, or generally doing anything we love. Importantly, it is the moments of kairos that make all that chronos worthwhile.

This is a metaphor for parenthood. Most of our days are spent in a state of fatigue or overwhelm or anxiety, and if we focus on that we miss the moments of kairos—like when your baby smiles at you and he is so perfect that it makes all those sleepless nights worthwhile, and you would do it again in a heartbeat. Look for the moments of kairos, because in this twilight time of new parenthood they will be your guiding light to the end of the tunnel.

I hope you find them as profoundly healing as I did. Thanks A! Major love.

Hugs.
mxo