Leaves

In a few minutes (CST) October will be halfway over. Been a strange year, and this month is no exception. It’s warm enough to have the windows open and the skittering of the leaves is creepily comforting….

Friends of mine (more than one) regularly admonish me whenever I wish the day, month, year away – and rightly so.

Others tell me to live in the moment, to cherish where I am at that precious point in time.

In turn I tell younger moms to enjoy each moment with their children, and as my friend Elizabeth attested to this summer (and I talked about in this space), she is taking this to heart.

Do I take my own advice?

Recently I posted a status on my Facebook wall akin to being ready to say about this year “Happiness is 2012 in the rearview mirror.”

I was quickly taken to task by dear friends, reminding me not to wish time away.

They are right. Some nights I lie awake, incredulous that in seven years and change I’ll be the age my mom’s father was when he died. Time feels like it’s screeching by – and yet some days I want it to accelerate.

Mostly the moments when the bad seems to overpower the good.

But life encompasses everything, a wise friend said recently.

The minutes have passed, and October is officially halfway over. The leavings start this year and continue into next.

Years ago, I’d assign my beginning reporting students a ‘fun’ assignment (I thought it was fun): interview a partner on what superpower he/she would want.

Invisibility, invincibility, the ability to leap tall buildings in a single…leap.

Would I want to be able to slow down or speed up time if I donned tights and a cape (probably would want to slow down cellulite in that get-up)?

Guess I’d settle for the power to just savor the good moments and survive the bad.

And make the leaves dance into a pile awaiting the rake.