Tonight the girls and I were looking at old family pictures and watching old family videos on the computer. Whenever I see those old pictures and videos, it always makes me feel a great sense of gratitude for life. When I watch those old memories before my eyes I feel such a longing to go back to that time and live it more fully. I always think that things must have been really good then, somehow even better than now. I feel like I must have been more aware of what I had at the moment, but I know that the truth is that I am human and even when my girls were younger and life seemed so wonderful in those moments, it was slipping me by, just as it is now and I was taking a lot of it for granted. I know that I couldn’t possibly have been conscious of every beautiful moment and that I never fully can be.

My baby Serafina just getting her first teeth and learning to crawl and walk.

Kesa’s sweet innocence and sense of humor.

Autumn, going through the change of teeth, always with her great imagination and enthusiasm to play the day away.

What looking back tonight has made me realize once again is the nature of impermanence. Nothing lasts forever and life is constantly changing, whether we are conscious of it or not.

What the nature of impermanence continues to teach me is to appreciate the present. Instead of getting caught up in my thoughts and thinking about where I want to be, or where I think I need to be, to just slow down and accept myself as I am now and our life as it is now.

Just as these images from just one year ago touch on my soul today and invoke a feeling of deep love and longing, the ones I take today will do the same in another year from now. My girls will have gone through many changes again. They will not be the same. I will not be the same. Life will not be the same.

Tonight I am again inspired to be grateful for what I have in the present and to be ever mindful that it is impermanent and ever-changing. To live in the moment and to not take any bit of this precious gift of life and the ones that are in it for granted.

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” – Thornton Wilder