Bubbles at the Carwash

After my glucose test at the OBGYN yesterday, I took the rare opportunity driving the small car and ventured off to the automatic carwash.  Our car used to be white but with all the dirty snow and lack of cleaning for more than half a year, it was looking more grey and was completely overdue for a wash.

As I sat in silence alone in the car watching the bubbles swish back and forth, changing in size, disappearing and then reappearing.... I thought about life and how quickly it flies by us.  With each swoosh of the rubber slamming against my car over and over again, my mind wandered to how quickly  tiny no teeth baby has turned into a full mouth of teeth toddler while mesmerized by the different sizes of water bubbles all flashing before my eyes and then swimming off my windshield like a well rehearsed synchronized swim routine.  The water put me in a daze and my mind drifted into his baby days, the little wrinkly alien with the cone head who then grew into cuddly rolls and then morphed into my curious cute little troublemaker crawler.  At a year, right about when we were moving to Washington, he was still a stumbling no word little man but now, almost two... he is a fully trying his best to communicate but really just babbling (most of the time) two year old.  

I thought about if Andy and I have changed that much over the last two years.  He's gone from a head of flopping hair to a buzzed head, back and forth a few times, I've gone from long hair to longer hair to so short I can't believe I have this hair.  But other than that, we both still somehow look the same (maybe more wrinkles?).  And yet, we've been through so much together already in just a few short years.  We made it through our first year of parenthood, changed jobs, matched for his residency, traveled, graduated, moved, and are now anticipating our growing family in our own house in just 3.5 months.  And the weirdest thing.. people call him Dr. Phillips (not me .. not yet, haha).  

I continued to enjoy the few minutes I had in there lost in my thoughts, away from the world and just enclosed in my car, not really recalling what it was like to run errands by myself from just two years before.  My thoughts turned to motherhood and how it has changed and softened my heart, humbled me, and taught me about my own shortcomings.  I ran through the things I still needed from the market, the lesson I am teaching in Church on Sunday, the house updates, room designs, and numerous projects we have planned, and then my thoughts were interrupted by the water dancing over my windshield again.  I stopped thinking for once and just admired it.  It was so calming.  The smell penetrated through the closed windows and reminded me of when I was a kid, of going to the carwash with my dad and having so much fun inside the car as the bubbles suffocated us and then disappeared with the heroic water who came and rescued us.  And I just enjoyed it.  Took it all in.  The bubbles, the water, the rubber, even the flashing red light that told me it was all done and I had to move forward and exit.

Back to reality, back to a million things to do, a cute little boy who loves me and gives me muted kisses on my lips (because he puckers his big lips which are still small for his size), back to a husband who still makes me blush but also laugh and be better, back to a job that takes up a lot of time but is really flexible, fun, and enables me to go back to LA often, back to loads of laundry, back to piles of dishes, back to a living room scattered with Jordan's toys, back to the amazing but busy life at home.  

In the Bible, Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.  I might not look back, but I do often dwell on how fast time has gone by and can spend hours looking at old photos, reading old journal entries, etc., and really a quick glimpse here and there is great... but my present and my now deserve my undivided attention more and I'd like to remember that as we move forward.  I'd like to keep a good record of it all, but there's a time and a place for sitting down to read it all.  And today just might not be it.  I said good-bye to the carwash and told myself I'd go back soon for that respite of five minutes to clean the van... and some.