I Want the World to Stop

the girls, bright and shiny, first day of school

One of life's inevitable conditions is that it always continues, forever forward moving at an unprejudiced, consistent pace. Sometimes it seems a great injustice that it doesn't stop or at least slow. Certainly the birth of a baby deserves a pause, a small acknowledgement of the arrival of something truly spectacular? But, it doesn't, it goes and it goes, continuing on its long, heavy, purposed way. A baby is born and we draw in our breath and want the world to stop, but cars still break and need registration, school starts and needs new shoes and pencils, bills have their dues, and 16-month-olds still get terribly, horribly, terrifyingly sick.
But then on the flip side, is the relief that life does always move and continue. When we think we just can't do it anymore and the responsibilities and challenges seem impossibly beyond our strength and ability, we can feel life's movement beneath our tired and aching feet, promising that it won't always be like this, that there will be new days, new places, new happiness. I can feel the soft vibration of its promise in my toes right now.