Instead of doing For Real Friday this week, I’m doing Thankful Thursday because…Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for my family, my friends, great books, and for being fortunate enough to live in the moment.

Living in the moment is hard when you’re stressed or broke or busy. But I’ve been making a conscious effort. And I recognize my privilege here. My husband and I are mostly in a place where life is pretty stable. I’m able to stay home with my daughter and write, but we’re not comfortable enough for that to be a long term plan, so I’ve been finishing up my EDs in school library media this semester. After a semester of interning five days a week, balancing school work, editing Venus and Adonis/Aphrodite, studying for the GACE, attending conferences, and just being overall very busy, something really nice happened last Friday.

I had a minute to breathe. I’d taken and passed the GACE the day before. I’d finished up all the intern hours I had to do and was just going back in for a few hours to wrap up some loose ends, I’d finished another pass on Aphrodite, and Bella was about to be off for an entire week (I’m really involved at her school). So I woke up, got everything ready, and then went to wake up Bella.

She didn’t want to get out of bed. It’d been a hard week for her, we’d just been so busy! And for this one day, I wasn’t in a rush. So instead of dragging her out of bed and stressing us both out as I rushed her along her morning routine, I returned to the kitchen, put our breakfast on trays, and snuggle beside her for a breakfast in bed.

“It’s just hard to get out of bed sometimes,” Bella lamented.

“I know,” I sympathized. Sometimes, it really is. So we snuggled, and ate, and she told me all about her dreams, and I told her all about our plans for Thanksgiving break (a lot of staying home and doing nothing, but also maybe the zoo) and we just had this perfect moment of relaxing and not being stressed and just enjoying each other. Then breakfast was over, she got ready for school, and somehow we weren’t even late. It’s like time froze for that one magical moment and I could just feel her tiny little body tucked against mine as she stared into my eyes and told me absolutely everything that came to mind. She’s going to outgrow moments like that. She mostly already had. Most mornings she’d be pushing me away from her and grumbling that she has to brush her teeth RIGHT NOW so she doesn’t miss playground time.  So I’m thankful, SO thankful, that I was in a position to take advantage of that one precious moment before it was gone. And I hope I’m lucky enough to catch the next one.