A confession from the land of More
I have a confession.
I’ve never made a pie. From scratch that is. Until this Thanksgiving.
It wasn’t that I never wanted to, or never day dreamed about doing it. I did.
It’s just that it always seemed so daunting.
The idea of making a pie from scratch would require the excavation of the perfect recipe. The unearthing of trending old world instructions that would likely call for flour... ground by hand. Have mercy.
An extensive trip to the grocery store for a harvesting of signature ingredients.
The wrestling of my newly acquired, highly acclaimed bounty into the car. Or, the physical lumbering of goods down the street if I opted to walk to the store. My shoulders shuddered at the thought.
The unpacking, the measuring, the mixing, the making, the little fingers of my beautiful, growing gal poking through puffs of flour and pie dough amidst her big questions about the how’s and why’s of making something out of nothing.
The baking, the timing, the checking and re-checking, the waiting it out with a hope for anticipated Instagram worthy perfection amidst the ringing of the telephone, the pumping of cortisol, my muscle memory reminding me of all the “other things” that should get done - the laundry things, the cleaning things, the entrepreneurial things, the reach out to friends things, the work things, the email things, the bill paying things, the wife things, the parenting things, the self care things, which of course always fell to the bottom of that list. If there was a bottom.
The tireless, endless list of things that needed to get done before I could enjoy such a decadent distraction. The thought was simply exhausting.
And just like that, my daydream would fade away, quietly sulking off to that abandoned corner of my mind where I harbored all of my treasured “when the moment’s right” wants and needs. The esteemed when the moment’s right wants and needs that float around that place inside you, guarded by ghoulish ghosts that haunt your potential.
You know the place… the one where you keep all of the things you’d like to do…tomorrow -
if only you had more.
More time, more money, more confidence, more space, more beauty, more connections, more sleep, more know-how, more friends, more family, more, more, more times infinity.
Times pi.
Damnit! Pie. What an apt reminder.
My goal to fully live The 360 Life means that I’ve got carte blanche to live for here and now. Not later. Not when there's more. Not when the moment's right.
But now.
Right here.
In this moment.
To drop anchor with my priorities and aim to be present in the moment.
Suspending myself in a moment's unyielding imperfection and endless potential.
To seize the very moments that make life worth living.
Not because I have to. Life is filled with plenty of "have to's" and that's a whole other topic to tackle another day. Because I want to. Electing to live right here and now, submerging myself in moments of perfect imperfection because quite frankly, when it comes down to it, moments, in all their shapes and sizes, one right after another, they're all we've got, right?
Living The 360 Life means you've got a standing invitation to be bold and belt out in song, to hell with more, set to the beat of an off Broadway musical complete with campy and unchoreographed dance moves. To walk right up to those ghosts. To open the door to that place deep inside where we're haunted by all of life’s “when the moment’s right”, to stare down those Ghosts of More, and with palms sweating, feet firmly planted, scream out, you don’t scare me anymore. To march right on in, stamp your foot, and holler out No More When The Moment’s Right!
It might not be much. But at this very moment, it's a start.
I made that daydream pumpkin pie with my daughter at Thanksgiving.
It wasn’t perfect. In fact, it was so awful she refused to eat it.
But it was ours. Time made for a moment.
A magical memory for the taking. Right then and there. Which was delicious in every way.
