Better Late Than Never
Why I finally decided to post this.
I wrote this more than five years ago. In my post-wedding and -honeymoon bliss, I had every intention of starting a blog with this post as my "Blogger's Debut." I'm a little late on publishing it. I had to update a few things so that it's a current read, but the feelings and mentality are as present today as they were then. The pandemic continues to remind me to treasure my time with those I love. It also continues to reveal the foolishness of waiting for some future date to start something. So without further ado...
When Eric and I got engaged, everyone was thrilled. I mean, genuinely thrilled. Family, friends, co-workers. It was very sweet. And along with all the excitement came a lot of advice. Some of it was great. Some of it I ignored. It was all well-intentioned. But the most frequent wedding tip I heard was this: “The day will go by so quickly. Make sure you stop, look around, and take it all in.”
As the weeks rapidly turned into months, I knew that if the planning phase was going by so fast, the day of the wedding would surely fly, so I took that advice to heart as I continued to work on the smaller details for "The Big Day." I'm not one to typically hop aboard trends, but one of the trendy wedding ‘musts’ I was actually excited to tackle was coming up with our social media hashtag. Mine had to be witty, as those are the best kind, so I knew I wanted to play off my new last name. I didn’t have to think too long before deciding on #sabereverymoment, the perfect sentiment for the day and a pretty great pun. So with my hashtag as my mantra, on my wedding day, I consciously stopped, looked around, and took it all in. And it was incredible.
It was while we were on our three-week honeymoon in Europe and I continued to share our photos with our hashtag that I realized this needed to be my mantra for life. Each day of our trip was filled with beauty and culture and amazing food. We soaked up everything we could, and at the end of each day, it was easy to pick out our favorite moments, though nearly impossible to choose just one. I knew that when we returned home, we’d fall back into our busy lives of housework instead of artwork, expenses instead of experiences, rarely stopping to savor any moment.
I'm still a work in progress, but I try to remind myself to be more present, take time to do the things I love in addition to the things I must, and appreciate the everyday moments that will pass way too quickly if I don’t stop, look around, and take them in.