This is Real Life

Real Life won’t begin out in the future somewhere.

Someday.

Real Life won’t start when you finish school or get married or start a family. It isn’t when you buy that dream house or start the new job or get that promotion.

Real Life won’t start once the kids are all potty-trained or once everyone is in school or if you finally lose those last ten pounds or tick a few things off your bucket list.

Nope.

Real Life is right now.

Today.

Right here, wherever you are.

Real Life is waking grumpy kids for school and packing lunch boxes and signing planners. It’s the bald and bearded husband you’ve loved for all these years (now more than ever) making his morning coffee then planting a quick kiss on your lips before he heads off to work.

Real life is squeezing in a workout between grocery shopping and laundry. It’s finding time to phone a friend while you speed along to soccer practice hoping she might be in the car too because everyone knows that’s the only time a mom can really talk.

Real life is a fresh tomato from the garden sliced on a sandwich with mayo and provolone cheese for lunch. It’s walking your dog around the neighborhood and watching the birds at the feeder and a sunset over the mountains that absolutely takes your breath away.

Real life is kids bickering on the drive home from school while you attempt to field every single, “Hey Mom, guess what?” so no one feels left behind. It’s getting the time wrong for soccer practice (again) and forgetting to grab that one thing from the store (again) and cooking dinner from a box served with strawberries (because hey, at least there’s fruit).

Real life is your family sitting around the dinner table for just a few slow moments of the day as everyone laughs and talks and offers up a High/Low while passing the fruit bowl…just like you’ve done every night for all these years.

Real life is tucking kids to bed with stories a half an hour behind schedule then loading the dinner dishes and wiping down the kitchen and picking up all the toys littering the floor (again). And it’s flopping on the couch next to a tired husband to rehash the day then talking way past bedtime because at last the house is quiet.

It isn’t special. Or outstanding. Or extraordinary.

It’s TODAY.

Right here.

Just like it is.

Ordinary. And absolutely lovely.

Real life is now.

Today.

All we have is today.

THIS is Real Life…so stop waiting for it to start.

And just go LIVE it