Like the folding of cake batter in a big metal bowl.
A beautiful crowded wedding hall. I’m at a table for eight. Close to the head table, but off in the corner.
The bride and her dad are dancing to I Hope You Dance.
Sitting sideways in my chair to face the dance floor. The song comes on. A lump in my throat.
My niece Julia is married.
Her dad’s eyes filled with tears in this tradition of love and letting go. A public acknowledgment that the little girl who once sat on his shoulders is now building a life with someone else.
Watching them dance, I leaned back against my husband and said through a cracked voice:
“It’s amazing how life folds over itself.”
Because I’ve seen this dance before.
First as a little sister, ecstatic to be at a wedding and in the wedding party.
Then as a bride myself, full of hope and excitement. No idea what was ahead.
Then as an aunt watching my sister and her husband celebrate the family they created.
Same moment. Different seat in the room.
This week our whole family is vacationing at a beach house. My mom and dad, siblings, nieces, nephews and one great-grandchild. The first in our family.
4 generations in one house. On the same day, I help my dad with his shoes and help my niece’s one-year-old with hers.
One pair of shoes on feet that have walked through 81 years of life. One pair on feet just learning how.
The big moments make it obvious.
The weddings. The babies. The milestones that hit you right between the eyes. And in the gut.
But I think life folds over itself in smaller ways too.
In the meeting where you’re helping someone through a project you’ve done a hundred times before.
In hearing someone talk about a book you love and resisting the urge to prove you understood it first.
Or like watching a movie with someone seeing it for the first time and fighting the urge to give it away.
There’s value in the view from every seat in the room.
The person experiencing something for the first time brings wonder.
The person in the middle of it brings uncertainty, emotion, hope.
The person who has lived through it brings perspective.
Maybe wisdom is learning to be intentional about the chair you’re sitting in and what you do from there.
To guide without controlling.
To support without overpowering.
To remember what it felt like not to know what came next.
The same moments keep returning.
Just from different seats in the room.
Maybe wisdom is learning to appreciate the view from wherever time has seated you.
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Each week, I share something I’m learning, living, or working out in real time. It’s part storytelling, part reflection. I hope there’s something in it for you too.
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