The Moment Before

It's a transition time for the London family. Dad just got called to be the bishop of a new singles ward. Megan got a new job. Our sweet aunt passed away. Tomorrow Abbie will open her mission call. Soon she will go through the temple. I'll be turning 23  and a week later Megan will be 21. Finals will be next. And then I will graduate from college and possibly move across the country. Abbie will leave.

Plans and trips are being adjusted and rearranged, conversations are shifting. There is a collective change in our temperament, there is an undercover chaos to our views of the future. Sure, all this change is exhilarating. However, the path ahead for us each is also terrifying. I can't help but think on how these next few months will take three girls and make grown women out of us each.

I don't share this to lament over the cocktail of fear, excitement and anticipation that occupy my mind in the quiet hours. Instead I write today to remember this exact moment.

The moment before it all changes.

Before we know where Abbie will go. Before I graduate. Before we really have to grow up. This moment where I'm laying safely in my bed at my parents home. A bit past midnight, and I'm writing for the intent of remembering. Pictures of myself in high school cover the wall as a memorial to who I was, more than where I've been. The washing machine hums quietly in the next room. My parents asleep in the room upstairs. The faint sound of little dog paws making their way across the kitchen. The smell of fabric softener on my sheets. The heater gently blowing warmth into the room that occupied my childhood. It is this moment, with my music gently pulling the words out of my finger tips, that I want to come back to when the chaos crashes in. This Peter Pan moment in which I get to stay a child for just a bit longer.

So this is the moment I'll hang onto when the winds of change pull me on to my next adventure. When I become uncertain of myself, and my place in this world I will recall this very moment and take courage from it. It is this moment that I will treasure. This moment before it all changes.