Rather watch than read? Watch this week’s reflection on YouTube.
I caught myself staring at a sunset recently. And frankly, there wasn’t any particular reason for it. It wasn’t spectacular. The sky wasn’t on fire with brilliant oranges and reds. I wasn’t reaching for my phone to take a picture and post it on social media. It was just, well, an average sunset. But I stood there and watched it anyway.
A lot of life is probably more like that sunset than we’d like to admit. Most days aren’t spectacular. In fact, sometimes life can feel a little like Groundhog Day. We get up around the same time, make the same coffee, follow the same routines, drive many of the same roads and have a lot of the same conversations. Then we go to bed, get up the next morning and do some version of it all over again. And most of the time, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s just life.
I think I’ve spent much of my life treating ordinary days as the stuff that happens between the important parts. The vacation, the birthday, the accomplishment, the big event. Those were the things that seemed worth remembering. But some of the completely ordinary moments are the ones I miss the most.
When my kids were young and still living at home, there were thousands of nights when all of us were simply in the house together. We ate dinner. Somebody watched television. Somebody was doing homework. Somebody was probably annoyed with somebody else. There was nothing special about any of it. Nobody stopped to announce, “You’re going to miss this someday.”
And I’m glad they didn’t. I don’t think we’re supposed to walk around trying to turn every ordinary experience into something profound. I’m not sure I’d want to live that way.
But I do understand those moments differently now. There are conversations, meals and completely ordinary evenings from years ago that I remember even though there was absolutely no reason at the time to think I would. I guess that’s the thing. We don’t always know a moment is going to matter while we’re living it.
Sometimes we’re just standing outside watching an average sunset. And years from now, we may be surprised by what we remember.
