Suspended Time

Snow falling, tiny flakes blowing horizontally out my window I contemplate another week. Five to eight inches expected with high winds today and tomorrow. Gray, cloudy skies, every object covered in white, this monochromatic world stirs a longing deep within and makes me both sleepy and fully awake...time suspended.

Playing under the eaves in the attic, I'd don dress up clothes and create my imaginary home. Complete with invisible husband and child I'd play house. Arranging furniture, cooking, speaking with a foreign accent, creating both crisis and resolutions, whiling away hours in my own world I lived contently.

All grown up and on the cusp of my 44th birthday I long for the days under the eaves. And yet, I wouldn't go back if I could.

So what do I pine for from my youth?

Certainly I'd love the energy, stamina and smooth soft skin again.

I'm glad I know more and have experienced more-both the good and the bad.

Perhaps it's the magic and wonder.

Or maybe simply the time to explore and get lost in my own imagination.

Or the daily discovery of life.

But that's still all right here, right at my fingertips.

It's not chronological age that hampers me.

My dad never stops learning and digging and wondering.

And I often see my mom filled with awe.

Tears sting my eyes when I'm lost in a moment with beautiful music or walk through trees covered in hoar frost or contemplate the deep lasting true love of my husband or connect on a heart level with one of my kids or experience the joy of seeing God at work.

All that beauty that stirs my heart points me to a different kind of grown-up life... one that will never end.

"I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can." Ecclesiastes 3

**Under the Eaves by Henri Matisse**