Ordinary

I hung the clothes up on the line. I got the kids up, got them dressed, made them breakfast. I put ingredients in the crock pot for Scalloped Potatoes. I filled up our bag with snacks and water for our trip to Target, in which we hunted down a vacuum belt. After Target (where, of course, we ended up buying more than just the vacuum belt), we went to one of our favorite playgrounds on the way home, and ran around for 40 minutes.

The list above seems pretty mundane. Domestic.

But, that day, for whatever reason, I found myself being thankful for that Ordinary Day.

I got to thinking of all the people in the world right now who would do most anything for the kind of Ordinary Day that the kids and I were experiencing. People facing difficult decisions. People facing operations on themselves or loved ones. People facing pain, hurt or loss.

Because when it comes down to it, aren't the Ordinary Days going to be the ones we look back most fondly at? Sure, we'll remember the Big Days- births, graduations, weddings. But out of all the days of our lives, the Ordinary Days will outnumber the Big Days by a wide margin.

I just have this feeling that in 10-15 years, I'd give anything to go back in time, and have nothing more pressing to do in the middle of a weekday than to push my kids on the swings and seesaw with them.

On that day, as I was doing just that, (seesawing), I saw a lady in her 80's walking her dog along the edge of the playground. She looked at us. I looked at her, and we both waved.

I hope I can be that lady, someday, walking my dog on an ordinary day, and see a young mom and her kids playing, and smile and remember. I hope I can think to myself: "You know, those ordinary days were pretty special after all."