My Family – Lyla & Paisley

Do you ever get the feeling that time is just passing so quickly and no matter what you do you can’t stop it?

Maybe it’s the fact that I am turning 30 next year, or that I have a kid in grade school, or maybe I’m realizing more and more how much time I spend disconnected from nature and real life.

These past few months Chris and I have been watching Seinfeld (I had never seen the show before, so we are watching it from the beginning) and I have been struck over and over at how present they are in the moment. They all sit down on the couch and they just chat. No one is checking their phone or texting someone who isn’t in the room. They go to have breakfast, same thing happens. Occasionally, someone will be reading the paper and that is the extent of the disconnect between the people in the room.

Now I look at my own life and when I have friends over. I find that even if I don’t look at my phone, I am aware of where it is or the fact that I can’t seem to remember where I set it down. My phone doesn’t vibrate or ding, but I push the button to see if I’ve missed anything. Life is going on around me, but I am more aware of the virtual world inside my phone than I am the real world right in front of me.

Something has to change, because time won’t slow down. Time will only continue passing and my girls will continue getting older, just as I will. I don’t want to wake up one day and realize that I missed my life because I was too busy living a virtual one.

So today, I put my phone down.

I made some bread and smelled the ingredients.

My girls made a mess of the kitchen and I didn’t pull out my phone to put it on Instagram or Facebook.

I simply watched and laughed with them.