Pay Attention

My least favorite month of the year is officially over and it's time to breath a sigh of relief. At least until Valentines Day. It's the little things in life that are really what keep me going when we enter this particular stretch of time. There's no Matt, no traveling and not much to enjoy but work which, at least, gets me out of the house.

One thing that January is good for though is thought. Deep thought. Well... deep-ish thought. Mostly I sit and daydream about next year and about past travels. In those daydreams, however, have highlighted a bit of a frustration.

Last week is a great example: As I was writing about exploring Washington D.C. with Matt, I realized that I was having to really sit and wrack my brain to remember exact moments. I'm not saying that I don't remember the trip or that I didn't have an amazing time, quite to the contrary. However, I didn't remember specific moments as vividly as I wish I did.

Honestly that's been happing a lot in the recent years. I look forward to something so much that I put such pressure on it that I can't enjoy it. Or I focus on how the moment can't last and it passes me by. That's why visits with Matt seem so short and the reason it can be so hard to write about our trips. This struggle to remember our trips brings it to a whole other level of frustrating. The point of travel is to experience another place, not go and sit and leave just to say you visited. Even worse, it makes me feel like Matt is making memories without me.

My father was always telling me to pay attention to my surroundings and it's high time to take his advice again, I know, but the question is how? With so many distractions and a world full of hyper-awareness of the wrong thing (i.e. everything that could ever go wrong) how am I supposed to retrain myself to focus?

Obviously I don't have answers. It's just something I have to work on. Hopefully, with every new event and trip I'll find a way to work it out.

Have a lovely weekend all. I hope you all can make some good memories. <3

Txx