“And” counts

We’re constantly complaining about how life moves too fast. It’s too busy. Too quick. Too much. The days bleed into months and before we know it, we can’t remember what year we last went to the beach. Was it 2021? No, it was 2020.

The weeks fill up with work and meals and birthday parties for three year-olds. It’s all good things. We like these things. Why, then, do we feel so tired? Why, then, do we struggle to hold onto meaning in all of these moments?

Bear with me for a dance analogy. It’s like learning choreography to fast music. At first, you can’t imagine how all of those steps will fit into 8 counts. But the truth is, in between those 8 counts are 8 more counts. We call them “and” counts. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8. When you count the “and” counts, the movements have space to grow. You realize that you do, indeed, have time.

There are “and” counts in life, too. We are used to only counting the months and the weeks. We are used to turning planner pages and scanning calendar invite, but in between those lines are lives.

It’s like taking a trip to Europe and the thing that brought the most joy was a silly YouTube video you watched deliriously in a crappy hotel in Florence. It’s like stopping to bring your dad coffee in the middle of a busy day because you know his day is busy, too. It’s like giving a toddler a toy only for him to love the box more. Sometimes it’s the unexpected and unplanned moments in life that give space to our busy schedules.

We aren’t meant to fit our lives into the counts spelled out for us. There are moments in between those plans. It is when we practice counting the “and” counts of life, we realize that we aren’t too busy after all. We have just been listening to the music of life in a hurried way.

There is space. The music has time. You have time. There are so many more counts to come.