Each and every day I wake up and I’m instantly ready to go back to bed. I don’t always care about the events of the day. Most of the time, my days just consist of class and homework I wait until the last minute to do. I find myself counting down the minutes and going task to task just so I can finally get home and rest on the couch. Then, at the end of the week, I wonder where all of my time went. Suddenly, another week has passed me by and I never really got anything done or did anything memorable.

It seems like everyone is ready to see the end of things and they don’t get to enjoy the adventures along the way. We miss more than we know and then ask where in the world the time went. In a blink we have a degree, our children are grown up and we’re deciding on a good retirement location. Our families hardly see us because we don’t time the time to visit every weekend or we’ve made so many plans that we can’t even binge watch a Netflix show every once in a while. I want to tell you to slow down. Slow down at least a little.

I don’t want to be this woman who is so focused on a nap or being done with work that I don’t take the time to play a few hours more with my daughter. You really begin to notice just how fast our lives go when you have children. This is even more true when you have children in college. I can’t begin to believe I had my child two years ago. Two. Years. She has a full set of teeth and she can climb into her own high chair. My daughter can tell me when she’s ready to go somewhere and scribble like a champ on a coloring book page. She doesn’t want to be held when she’s sleepy and she’s beginning to not dance to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse songs. I look at her and wonder where my baby went. It doesn’t matter how often I see her or how many kisses I give her because time has still slipped by me because I stay too busy to really realize just much precious each second is.

Whether it’s family or school or just everyday things, take time for them. Put your textbooks down for an extra 10 minutes a day and call your parents. Why not start that novel you had always planned to write? Go to God in prayer and thank him for the time you’ve gotten and pray that you get to enjoy and cherish the rest of the time you have. Take time to fall in love and wait on the person meant for you instead of looking. There is nothing like being able to say you’ve had such a long day. It doesn’t matter if it was a good or bad long day because that time crept by and you got to experience every moment. It’s likely that those will be moments you remember most.

Slow down and enjoy. Don’t be ready to take a nap the moment you wake up. Even if you have to force yourself up, do it and breathe it in. Have a long year and don’t talk about how fast it went and how much you missed when you reach the next one.