but trust me on the sunscreen

I was thinking of writing a blog a few weeks ago before I went on my travel adventures to Seattle, followed by Cambridge. Unfortunately I didn't have time, so am doing it at this stage when I still have a lovely 2 and a half weeks of holiday time left to enjoy. What I really wanted to do was to capture the moment of being on the cusp of my holidays with so much adventure and free time stretching out unspoilt before me, and my return to work not yet even a distant dot on the carefree horizon. I'm not sure why I was so keen to do this, perhaps to let the future 'me' , who would no doubt be painfully jealous of the super-chilled 'me', know that the holiday-happy 'me' really treasured and enjoyed that period to the full. Then maybe the future deflated and work-saddened 'me' would forgive the footloose and fancy-free 'me' and then....what? Maybe the return to work will be equally painful either way! Or maybe you're thinking, when she returns to work she may be able to get this freaky mutliple-personality thing under control again and have less time to think weird thoughts! This is also true!

Does knowing that you really made the most of every moment of 'the good times' help ease the pain of the future when the rose-coloured specs seem out of reach? I guess I am widening this out to a larger scale of life in general, not just summer holidays - in case you think I detest work so much that I should look for another job before I go completely over the edge! In this final year of my 20's I have felt a renewed vigour to enjoy every last minute of being a twentysomething as it hit me a few months ago - I don't get to do 'being in my twenties' again- ever! Like ever ever EVER! I've never had to 'do' anything other than 'young', 'younger' or 'pre-young'! I look back at my most of my twenties and know I didn't fully appreciate being young, there were moments when the current 'me', and definitely a LOT of future 'me's' may be tempted to shake that unappreciative young scalliwag and tell her to wise up, seize the day and live for the moment!

But then there is a certain sympathy for the 'me' that didn't know any better, and only had the resources I had there and then to make my decisions, and tried to do the best I could with what I had. There is a slightly depressing saying that 'experience is the comb life gives you after you have lost all your hair' and I guess it's important to remember this before being too hard on yourself for things you did or didn't do! It's easy to have 20-20 hindsight but harder to see the woods for the trees at the time! I don't know what the conclusion is, I would love to end by saying I have found a great formula for living life to the full and eliminating regret, or that I've had 'Carpe Diem' tattoed on my brain and I'm never going to miss a moment or an opportunity again, but I know that isn't true. I love how Donald Miller takes the focus off trying to follow formulae in his book Searching for God Know What - which I really recommend for a refreshing, humourous and challenging look at living through ups and downs of life as a Christian. He writes:

I know there are some people who have actually gone from misery to happiness, but they didn't do it by walking through three steps, they did it because they had a certain set of parents and heard a certain song and knew somebody who had a certain experience, and saw some movie, and then read some book, then had something happen to them like a car wreck or a trip to Seattle, and then they called on God and a week later read something in a magazine, or met a girl in Wichita, and when all this had happened they had an epiphany, and someone may have helped them to fulfill what this epiphany made them feel, and several years later they rationalised this mystic experience with three steps, then they told the three steps to us in a book. And I'm not saying they weren't trying to be helpful; I bring this up only because life is complex, and the idea that you can break it down or fix it in a few steps is rather silly. The truth is that there are about a million steps and we don't even know what the steps are, and worse at any given moment we may not be willing, or even able to take them, and still worse they are different for you and me and they are always changing. I have come to believe the sonner we find this truth beautiful, the sooner we will fall in love with God on His terms, who keeps shaking things up, keeps changing the path, keeps rocking the boat to test our faith in him, teaching us not to rely on easy answers, bullet points, magic mantras or genies in lamps, but rather in His guidance, His existence, His mercy and His love.

I have found this REALLY helpful and incredibly freeing in the past year or so, and I think your life will really improve if you too follow these next 3 steps.....just kidding!

I was also inspired by this poem that was read at my friend Matt's wedding to a Danish girl called Gitte last Saturday. I think it is translated from the original Danish-hence maybe slightly clumsy in English although still true!- and was written by Piet Heins:

To live in the present is the art of life, and all people do their best
But half of them choose the now that has gone and half of them choose the next one
And both the now that is past and the now still to come are never life's true present
And all people's lives pass by anyhow, just remembering and waiting
For the now that has passed is gone for ever and the next is never right either
Always ensure that the now you live in, is today and forever the one.

And just in case you're not feeling that profound whilst skimming over this, have a listen to Baz Luhrman's 'Sunscreen', it's probably far too long since you've heard it and reflected on its teaching!