Today

It's June. Lovely, sweet smelling, beautiful weather June. My birth month, my anniversary month and the month that makes me swear to myself every year that I will not waste this summer. This year I will not allow summer to go by me unnoticed liked a dandelion in a field of daisies. I will pick that dandelion and I will make jelly!

Quiet lazy day's on the farm, meandering in the yard, cold lemonade on the back porch with a good book and breezy naps on the hammock. Walking the quiet paths of my garden with an old wicker basket in hand. Picking vegetables dripping in morning dew as tiny birds scutter by catching beetles from the garden beds. Rows of bold zinnias and sunflowers begging to be picked and placed in vases for the farm stand. It all plays out so well in my head and soothes my soul to it's very depths.

It's not that easy though, is it, to hold each day individually wrapped in it's own gift paper.

Days, there's just so many days in our life, one day after another, they all blur together. Let me just push through this day, just get through today until tomorrow and then another tomorrow and next week, maybe next month. Until there are so many yesterday's that there is no more tomorrow.

As I write this I have had 16,414 yesterday's but I have no idea how many tomorrows I will have, 11,000 tomorrows? Maybe 5,000 or maybe just 1?

I want to hold on and savor each day like that last bite of the very special cake you wait all year to eat and then once it's gone it's just a distant craving left on your tongue. That moment, you are in the present, all your senses are there. You close your eyes, smell it on the fork just below your nose, sweet and tantalizing, you focus as the fork places that decadent treat on your tongue tasting every flavor it possesses as it hits your mouth. You sigh, that was fucking fantastic. That's how I want every day to be.

So how do we slow down and be mindful of each and every day? I think the first thing we need to do is shut off our phones and stop letting people we don't know influence our minds and our hearts. We need to stop connecting with hundreds of people online that we don't know and connect with and get to know ourselves. Ask ourselves questions in the quiet times of the mornings when the only sound is the birds starting their day. Let's slow down and stop trying to be some form of perfect that we think we should be. Perfectionism is something we have started to brag about and desire, it's a fucking mental health issue people, it's not something we should be proud of.

How about we make living simple a priority in our life. I don't mean the trendy simple living that costs a small fortune to look like you are living simple. I am talking about living within our means, financial, emotional and physical means. Not trying to impress anyone and doing life just for ourselves because it's what we want and its what is in our hearts.

Can we make ourselves priority please! Not the way we look or what we wear but our true selves, the self we avoid on a daily basis. The self that is screaming for a different way of life, to be really seen and needs to be healed. Let's stop using the thousand different numbing techniques we have in our modern day life and get to know that person.

Enjoying every day and being present means getting to know and appreciate mother nature, she is a healer. Get into the woods, meander through that garden, visit a farm, be in the presence of animals and let them teach you. They know so much more than us, if we would just quietly pay attention.

These are the things we need to be making a priority so when that last day does arrive we sigh and think that was fucking fantastic.

Best,

Angie