As my youngest enters toddlerhood, I can feel a part of me wanting to hold back time.

The hardest part is knowing we will not have any more newborn snuggles, first smiles, foods and steps, and the absolute unadulterated joy that a baby brings into a home. My heart already is aching and mourning the loss that never was.

How does someone mourn the loss of something that was/is never going to happen? There is nothing to memorialize or to remember. How does someone complete the cycle of that loss when there is no footing for it?

Perhaps it is a matter of finding grounding in the present and allowing that grief to work its way down through the bottom of the feet, growing roots so that we can find steady ground in the here and now.

Time flies. As fast as a mosquito on a humid summer day. No amount of preparation will allow us to catch up with it or to get ahead of it.

There is no way to catch time off guard. It is steady.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

The hands go round no matter what is going on in our lives or in our heads.

And yet, for some reason, time is still relative. Time flies on some days and drags on others.

Being present allows time to pass steadily but also manageably as we are squarely in it.

When we try to outwit time and catch up or get ahead, we miss it.

In our futility, we miss life.

Unlike what we were taught in school, there is not just one solution nor one way of solving a problem.

My husband and I calculate numbers differently. I don’t even know how to explain it but he goes at the numbers some roundabout way, and I watch jaw-dropped that we come to the same answer. I see my way as more efficient and thus smarter but is it really?

It would be a shame if there were just one way of going about a problem. And it would be a shame if there was only one solution.

You are right.

And so are they.

You are wrong.

And so are they.

There is truth on both sides.

And there is hypocrisy on both sides.

Can you recognize that you can both be right in your own regards? And be able to have compassion, empathy and understanding for their stance even though it is vastly different than your own?

Can you recognize and call out your own hypocrisy as you do theirs?

Real life isn’t in the extremes. It’s somewhere in the middle.