Why This Moment, Right Now, Is Worth Your Attention

I seem to have fallen in love.

According to various sources, I am either giggling in delirious happiness, crying with the sincerest gratitude, or pining because I’m not in his immediate vicinity. I’m madly, stupidly in love for the first time in my life— it’s enough to make me want to call all of the former roommates and girlfriends I thought were abandoning me in their respective euphoric states and be like, “Oh. Okay. I get it now. Sorry for being a drama queen.”

It’s obvious to everyone who knows me and/or unwittingly asks if I’m seeing anyone these days. “I ammmm,” I gush, all sighs and starry eyes, “and he’s… he’s wonderful.”

I’m moony and irritating even to myself, and the reality is that none of it is contrived. It’s just that I’ve lived my life to this point with a healthy (okay, make that jaded and cynical and terrified) mistrust of the early stage of love, so I’m caught in the most delicious and ironic crosshairs of, “Oh bless, I’m that girl…” and “I’m that girl!”

While this love is still untested and shiny in many ways, there is a solid foundation upon which my boyfriend and I dream of building. In other words, I’m preoccupied with googling mini bottles of champagne to be used as wedding favors one day, and I struggle to focus on, oh, you know, pretty much anything else. We dream of a future together—one specific day in particular, sure, but a whole life as well. This isn’t (exclusively) a wedding-crazed fantasy. It’s the hope of a long-awaited prayer come to life, the promise of a path and a partner and story to be shared.

All that to say, I don’t want to rush anything, really I don’t… but in the esteemed words of Harry Burns, “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

That’s where I am. As-soon-as-possible.

This extends past my relationship, too. It applies to my nephew, who recently made his debut into my family and set off an entire chain reaction of cross-country flights and unbelievable first meetings. It applies to my career, which I love now, but about which I also dream of what it will look like in five, ten, twenty years. It applies to my new-ish city, this gorgeous new Promised Land brimming with friends still unknown to me and life-changing community that could be just around the corner. It applies to…well, all of me, really.

I was driving home tonight, wishing the day when I drive home to one man instead of a bunch of girlfriends was right now, when the sky stole my focus. Soft peachy swirls of clouds hung low over the city’s silhouette, with deeper shades of melty-looking amber reflecting off the buildings. Rain poured in the distance, but the sun glowed over the city. The skyline was so beautiful, too beautiful not to stop and look a little bit longer.

I paused at the edge of the river, distracted from my future dreams and drunk on God’s watercolors, and it occurred to me: This moment is worth living in.

 This moment is one God deems good—the early stages of love and commitment and excitement and dreams, the time wherein my boyfriend and I are free to discover each other in every new way and relish all of the “firsts” in a young relationship.

This moment is one God deems good—the long days and ambiguous tasks and thrilling highs and mind-numbing lows of laying the foundation for a long career. This place is holy, holy ground, for here is where I practice walking in hopes of one day running.

This moment is one God deems good—the shared home with roommates, the promise-of-and-yet-not-quite of best friends in a new city…I’m learning the only way to get five, ten, twenty years of experience in something is to give five, ten, twenty years to its cause. Groundbreaking, I know. But still, careers aren’t built overnight and neither is a circle of trusted, tried-and-true, we-know-everything-about-each-other relationships.

This moment is one God deems good—and I am grateful.

Life won’t always look as it does now. One day, I’m sure I will miss the freedom I currently take for granted, and I may long for the hyper-detailed budget meetings of yesteryear as I navigate motherhood, and this “No, you hang up… no, you hang up,” phase cannot be a sustainable, permanent fixture in our relationship no matter how much we love each other.

And so instead of as-soon-as-possible, may I remember “Soon enough, girl.” There’s so much more room for grace in that, for stretching and readjusting and knowing and choosing. “Soon enough, girl” is filled with hope, yearning, a chosen mantle of patience, whereas as-soon-as-possible is frantic, cavernous discontentment.

Slow down. Notice the sky. Soon enough, girl.

Soon enough, my man and I will have our future.

Soon enough, there will be more to my career than there currently is.

Soon enough, we will have our people in this new place.

This moment is worth living in, worth celebrating. And I am grateful.

Carly Crookston is a world traveler currently nesting in Nashville, Tennessee. A lover of words, people, and Jesus, she delights in pretty books for a living. A Joanna Gaines fangirl, Carly daydreams about her name in print, a home full of laughing people and good food, and a life of adventures with her future husband, Jesse.