What's Next?

 Lately I've been wondering what's next for me.

Not in a doom and gloom type of way. And not with a feeling of urgency. I am happy and content with where my life is right now and I am not aching or asking for change (even though I know it can come at any time).

It's just that life is such an intricate and rushed whirlwind for the first 30 years of your life. Between school, sports, best friends, hurt feelings, first kisses, middle school dances, SATs, college applications, deciding what to BE when you grow up (does anyone ever really know that for sure?), and graduations, we are 22 years old before we know it and setting out in the world. Then comes more dating, break ups, proposals, finding "the one," careers, lost jobs, marriage, moving, adjustments, children, and before you know it you are 30 years old and everything you have been anticipating in life is over. Done. Kaput. You have a husband and a family, a life you love, a career you have chosen ... so what's next?

I've spend the past three decades checking items off of life's To Do list and now I don't know what, well, TO DO!

Again, this does not mean that I'm unfulfilled or unhappy. I love my life right now and it is busy, busy, go, go, go, all of the time. I'm not bored and I love the current stage of life. It's just that there's always been a goal, hurdle, or upcoming event that I am able to mark on my calendar. Something I'm looking towards in the future. What do I look to now?

And today, while mediating cat fights and trying to get four kids out the door to school, it hit me ...

THEIR lives are what I have to look forward to next.

Sam's first day of kindergarten. Peyton's first ballet class. Adah's first 100% on her spelling test. Luke's first date. Sam's applying to colleges. Adah's fiancee. Peyton's first little newborn.

I get to live it all again and I get to do it times four. How wonderfully awesome is that? And I know, I know, I promise not to be the meddling mom that lives vicariously through her kids. But how great it will be to get to support them, cheer them on, and love then as they experience all the triumphs and failures (hopefully less that me) that come so quickly in those first twenty or thirty years.

And hopefully, while I'm enjoying the fast paced tenure of the next few decades of their lives, I'll be able to bring a piece of wisdom, a perfectly timed hug, or a shoulder to cry on. And I'll do it all while enjoying the much slower and less rapidly altering pace of my own life. A place where I get to grow towards God now that I have slowed down enough to see what really matters. A place where Matt and I get to sit and learn to love each other even more that we already do. A place where I get to teach my kids what it means to love others, to be kind, and to point towards God with their everyday behavior.

So what's next?

 Ask my kids.