Just a Day

Today was just a day. I didn't do anything special. I had no meetings, no pressing appointments, no deadlines, nothing screaming for my attention. I didn't have to dress up or drive somewhere far away. No one called me on the phone or sent me an urgent email. I didn't even feel compelled to check Facebook every hour or so to see if anything had happened that I might have missed.

It was just a day.

I took my son to the park. We climbed up ladders and slid down slides. He asked to ride on my shoulders and chase geese, which we did. He wanted me to push him high into the air on the baby swing and not so high on the big boy swing. I put the windows down in my car and we drove through the tree-lined roads listening to the cicadas scream at the heat. He asked me at least 30 times why the "cay-das" were so loud. I told him it was to scare birds.

Just a day at the park.

We both needed haircuts, so I took him to his usual barber, and on our way to the door, he reached up and held my hand. I didn't ask him to; he just did it. And when we got inside and there was no one waiting, he didn't fuss or scream. He simply walked over to the chair he liked best, climbed up, and quietly got his hair cut. When the barber was finished, he looked at me and said, "I look like you!" The barber laughed, and then Jon asked me sweetly if he could play with the toys in the corner. I told him yes. We had nowhere else to be. No schedule to keep. No one in need of our presence.

It was just a day.

After I got my haircut, we went to the grocery store, then came home and had lunch. After lunch, he wanted to play tackle, so we spent the better part of an hour with me flipping him up and around and again, tossing him onto the couch or pretending like his tiny punches were as powerful as Superman's. When it was time to settle down, we sat on the couch together and watched a cartoon; his head drifting closer to my elbow with each passing minute. Soon enough it was nap time and three solid rocks had the boy completely asleep.

Now, I'm sitting here, typing a post that most people won't read or, if they do read, may wonder about the point. That's easy: there's not one. I managed to live today without feeling the need to accomplish something, or make a difference, or any of the other things we often convince ourselves must be done every waking minute of every waking day. Sometimes we push so hard to make life fulfilling that we stop remembering to be fulfilled; we neglect to just stop and live life for a while.

So today was just a day. I've not had one in a long time so I felt like I needed to remind myself what it was like. Just me and my son, the sky and our imaginations.

Just a day.

It was wonderful.