Live For Another Time, Before It’s Too Late.

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Today I wanted to take a step back and do a little explaining. I’m sure some of you are wondering:

How did you come up with the name for your blog?

It may be a little bit of a roundabout story, but I think it will really help you lovely folks understand exactly what this blog is meant for.

Now, let me start off by saying that I’m a huge music fan. I love it when you find that one song (or many!) that really just speak right to your soul. I truly believe that every person on this earth has at least one song that just IS who they are.

For me, one of those songs is “Song for Another Time” by Old Dominion (they’re considered a country music group, for those who aren’t familiar but would appreciate the warning!). It’s that sort of more modern, “pop” country.

Anyway, if you aren’t familiar with it (or maybe even if you are), you might want to take a closer look at the lyrics. The overall gist of it, at least from my perspective, is that the singer is saying hey, maybe down the road things will be different; maybe they’ll be better but maybe worse.

So for today, let’s just be us, as we are right now, and not worry about the rest.

Unrelated, I especially love that many of the lyrics are in fact other song titles, but that’s not really relevant to the story here!

So obviously my blog title is based on that song. Why? Well, because that’s just about as good a description of the life that I hope to live that I could ever come up with.

What does it mean to live “for another time,” really?

It means that maybe today, my life is a little bit of a mess. I’ve got debts that need to be paid, laundry that needs washing, and kids that need raising, to summarize. I’ve got hopes and dreams of things I want to accomplish in my life, I’ve got projects that I hope to do, and I’ve got things I want to learn.

But isn’t it always the case that those things are always stuck waiting “for another time?”

I want to paint our family room. But it’ll need to wait until later, because I really should get the laundry caught up first, do some other chores around the house that are a little neglected, and oh yeah, I’m just tired and don’t want to wait until 8:30 or 9:00 at night to paint once my kids are in bed!

I want to stop spending nearly every free minute that I have each day working and working and trying hard to earn a dollar to help my family push those darn debts off our back as soon as possible; I want a chance to just sit and relax, and have nothing weighing on my mind that should be getting done instead. But that’s not something that I can afford to do right now. It’ll have to wait for another time in my life when we are debt-free, living the good life.

I want to jump ahead (hopefully it’s not too far off) and be at a point in my life where my chores are caught up, I have a perfectly managed schedule each day that focuses heavily on fun and play and learning with my kids, and nothing is ever out of place or in a state of disarray. But even that is going to have to wait for another time too.

Why?

Maybe more important than another time in my life is the right here and right now.

Now bear with me, because here’s where it gets a little tricky.

I need to prioritize living my life today, for today, because that’s really all any of us has, isn’t it? There’s no way to know that tomorrow even exists.

But I need to remember that my actions today dictate the life I’ll live tomorrow.

The hard part is finding the balance between those two things, and it’s going to be different for everyone.

I wish I could tell you exactly how to act and what to do for this or that to guarantee you the life you always dreamed of.

I wish I could tell you what the most important things are in life – we all have some basic similarities here but the specifics are unique to each of us.

I wish I could give you a sure-fire solution for every problem you will ever face.

But I can’t.

Because be it full of riches, poor but full of people who love you, full of things, or a life of giving your things away, every perfect life out there that is waiting to be lived is meant for one person only.

There’s something to be said for the old saying I was raised under, “work hard, play later.” And there’s also something to be said for the saying “live in the moment.” The best that I know how to do is do that hard work, so that maybe my tomorrow will be a little easier, or a little less stressful, or a little bit more sunny (anyone else’s windows desperately asking for a spring cleaning?!).

The thing I need to remember, and what I hope to accomplish sooner than later, is that today, this very moment, matters more than any of it.

My kids will never be less intelligent than they are right now, so I need to be sure to enjoy their wide-eyed wonder and innocence while it lasts.

When my house is Pinterest-perfect and magazine photo shoot ready someday (hey, I can dream), I might just miss the whole “always having something that needs doing” phase of my life.

More important than a house totally void of dust bunnies is a house full of the sunshine and laughter of little children – the kind that only story time, tickles attacks, and silly dance parties to songs sung off-key can bring on.

So what does this blog (and its name) mean to me?

It’s a reminder to work hard today because that’s the only way to get to where I want to be.

But it’s a reminder that every single day I need to make an entry into my human memory, because I know that in another time I’ll want to be able to recall the sound of our daughter’s first, horrible, grunting “belly laugh.” I’ll want to remember exactly how it sounded the first time my son said “I wuv oo.” I’ll want to remember what it felt like to be a young married couple as we built a life and a family together, full of hope, dreams, and love.

Find a way, find the time, to take a spontaneous hike. Let your kids eat with their fingers (or faces) and worry about the mess later. Leave the dishes in the sink and enjoy a movie and some snuggles on the couch, with whoever your most important people are. Find a way to get a little more mud in your life.

I know many of you out there want a life like this too. Let’s all try to remember, when things get chaotic and maybe we’re in over our heads:

Enjoy today, because tomorrow is not a given.

Work hard today to build something better, for another time; but don’t forget to stop and make a memory to hold on to, for another time, too.