Simple Moments

I realized something the other day, though I'm certain it's not the first time a person has come across such a realization, nor the first time I have in my life, for that matter.  What I realized was this, life is made up of moments.  Moments that stand out and moments that don't.  Moments that we forget about 30 minutes after they've happened, and others we will remember for years or even the rest of our lives.  But remembering these moments isn't the important thing.  After all, we only have so much space in our heads to store them and they can't all fit up there.  So, after time, even the best and most life-changing, most transcendent of moments will often fade.  Maybe they will be replaced by some other earth-shattering happening, or maybe they will be forgotten just to make room for that moment when you accidentally swallowed a bug while you were canoeing.  We have no control over this, and some of us (me!) seem to remember less moments than most people.  But let me state again, the remembering is not the important part.  No, it's the realization that all these moments are special in some way.  Maybe because they made us laugh or because they taught us something (however painful that thing was at the time) or maybe they made us appreciate something/someone in our own life a little more.  Every single moment touches us, in some way or another.

Films and books tend to focus on the big moments, those life-changing moments that rock the core of you and transform you in some way.  Because, those are the moments that matter the most, right?  I don't think so.  I've been thinking a lot lately how people say that your wedding is the best day of your life.  Through reading I've come to see that not all people believe that.  Sure, your wedding should be a special moment, it's the day you make a public commitment to share a life and marriage with someone else, for the rest of your life.  But isn't it the life and marriage afterwards the really rewarding part?  To me, it seems like it should be.  The wedding is just a ceremony, put on, mainly (at least in my case), for the people around you who you love.  For me, it's the marriage, the moments after the wedding that I'm excited for.  It's the little, inconsequential, and often ordinary things that I can't wait to experience.  Those simple moments where I step back and realize that I am completely content and blissfully happy with the person I have chosen to share my life with...all while we pick out flowers for our garden at our local home improvement store or walk along with our snowies talking about nothing in particular.  It's those simple moments that I'm really excited about.  And I know I won't remember most of them, but I hope that every so often I can stop and realize just how special they are...