Getting A Do-over - I Would Have Pedaled Slower

Getting a Do-Over - I Would Have Pedaled Slower

WANT TO KNOW my do-over? To choose just one is difficult. Not that I agonize over the past; I don’t. But I fully recognize that I made decisions and did things that often were not good for me or for those I love.

As a young mother, I was always so busy trying to “do good” and “be good” that, when I look back now, I see that I missed so many things that were good. I wish I had not been afraid to slow my pace. I wish I would have pedaled slower.

I didn’t make the connection between my productivity, my creativity, and my happiness until my kids had moved away from home. I’m a type A, overachieving, need-to-do-it-perfectly type of person, so it never once occurred to me that if I would just slow down, I would truly come into my own. I regret the fact that I learned this late and missed out on many opportunities to be present with my husband, my children, my coworkers, and most importantly, myself. Even today I have to remind myself that my best work, my best me, happens not when I work harder and longer, but when I slow down.

I try not to give unsolicited advice to my daughter, Shauna, but as I watch her holding her precious baby, Ava, I tell her often to slow down and relish this time. Although she’s overwhelmed with the things to do and the things to learn that accompany motherhood, I want her to know that she will never pass this precious place again with this child.

When it comes to pedaling slower, I would like to go back and read books to my kids again. If I could do this over I would read to them until they were big enough to hold me. Yes, I read to the kids when they were little, but when they were old enough to read for themselves, they read their own books.

Oh, how we missed out on taking wonderful adventures together when they were twelve and fourteen years old! Can you imagine the lessons we could have learned together and the rich conversations we would have shared by reading The Chronicles of Narnia books, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a family?

But we were all pedaling so fast.

Turn away from evil and do good.Search for peace, and work to maintain it. (Psalm 34:14)

I wonder if the world would have stopped turning if our family had reserved one night a week to journey together through a classic? I wish I would have pedaled slower on Thursday nights.