Nearly every Monday night I meet a group of friends up at the football stadium and we spend about an hour or so running up at down the steps.  From the bottom to the top there are 90 rows.  Ninety up and 90 back down, multiplied by 8 or 10 or if we’re feeling especially competitive, we’ll do it a dozen times.  Then we want to puke but that’s another story.  We count these rows as our feet hit the orange painted square of concrete with a white row number in the center of the square.

When you get to the very top, row 90, there’s a metal railing to keep you from going over the edge but you can stand there and feel a very strong breeze that circles through the concrete and steel structure.  Some days when the sun is burning hot and the air is thick, that breeze at the top of row 90 is what keeps you going.

Then there’s row 68 (or maybe it’s 70, but let’s go with 68, it’s close).  On that concrete step there isn’t any orange paint.  Instead there is a bright yellow line of paint all along the edge.  I’m not sure why that one step is yellow, it doesn’t make much sense to me unless it’s slightly steeper than all the rest and the yellow is a warning.  What I do know is that ever time I make it to that yellow step two thirds of the way up, I hit a wall.  I can almost physically feel my insides jerk up as my foot comes crashing down on the cracked yellow paint and it takes every ounce of energy I have to make it the rest of the way up to row 90.  I have to imagine the breeze waiting for me at the top is pulling me forward.  Just keep going.  You can do it.  The yellow line isn’t going to beat you this time.

You push and you grunt and you growl your way up.  Your reward is a pounding heart threatening to leap out of your chest, a shortness of breath that makes you forget that you really did give up smoking 6 years ago, and a shimmy in your quadriceps that makes you wonder if you’ll be able to haul yourself back down those 90 rows.  You lean against the metal railing and listen quietly to the wind as it blows around you.  The sound of your own labored breathing begins to flow at a semi-normal pace and then you hear it…the hum.  The hum of the air as it whips through that concrete and steel structure passing through columns, support beams, ramps, and breezeways – and it hums at you a final reward for making it to the top and making it past that painted yellow line.

So, the questions for you are these:  What is your yellow paint?  What trips you up and arrests your progress in life?  What is your humming breeze, your incentive and reward for pushing through?  Think about it and get back to me.

My son is 7.  S-E-V-E-N.  Just by virtue of his young age, doesn’t that make me young also?  I’m not delusional, I know I’m 38 years old.  But I, in no way, feel old.  Quite the opposite – compared to how I felt physically, mentally, and emotionally 5 or 6 years ago - I feel quite spry.  I like 32.  Can I just say I’m 32? Yes? Ok good.

So…back to my son.  My 7 year old.  Who makes me feel 32.  I remember myself at 7 years old, getting ready to go into Mrs. Campbell’s 2nd grade class.  I remember my mamma back then too and I compare my memory of her then to my idea of her right now, today, and I think, “holy smokes, a whole lotta time has gone by and just look at all the living that woman has done.”  (I’m thinking this in a very good way, b-t-dubs).  She’s done so much since I was 7.

And my son is 7 now.  And I have so much living left to do.  And a whole lotta time is still left to go by.

And here I find myself feeling the need to be in a hurry.  With what?  With everything.  I’m constantly looking for the fast forward button, or at the very least the play button, when life seems like it’s only moving in slow motion.

What I need to do is spend more time focusing on the things around me, the things that are going on during this whole lotta living, and be ok with what feels like slow motion.  Instead of allowing myself to imagine I’m getting bogged down I need to use the time to see the details. 

Ever see an “Eye Spy” kids book?  You glance at a page and are overwhelmed by all the buttons, dice, colored blocks and hair bows.  But take the time to go over each and every toy on the page and you see wood grain lines through the orange paint on the side of a wooden ABC block.  Flip the page and there’s a doll wearing a green dress and you can see each silken strand of her blonde hair pulled back with a yellow polka dotted ribbon.  The clown?  Ok, he’s scary so we’ll just turn the page again… 

But don’t you see?  Don’t you understand that within those details and the minutia of every day life…there’s a whole lotta living going on and I really don’t want to miss a single moment.