Saturday, July 29, 2006

I will light more candles

I was always the kid who saved her favorite food item for last at the dinner table --only to have my sister lean over quickly, stick a fork in it and push it into her mouth before I could fathom what she was doing.

You know that lovely smelling candle I’ve been saving from Illuminations? The one I placed near the window? It melted. And those fragrant soaps I’ve been saving in a basket in my bathroom have lost their scent.

I think the impulse to save something good for a later time is perhaps a signal for me to enjoy it now. Good things I enjoy will come for me later. I don’t need to hold on to them now.

It feels almost shameful to me to have done this to myself. I want to use and enjoy what I have and give away that which I am not using or enjoying anymore.

In the movie, Sideways, Maya blasts Miles for hoarding a '61 Cheval Blanc (one of the greatest Bordeaux) for a special occasion. She says to him, "I think the day you open a '61 Cheval Blanc, that's the special occasion."

For now on, I am going to make a conscious effort to create special moments in my life by enjoying the things I have. I will light more candles. No more waiting for that special moment to come to me. Because for the most part, we often don't recognize a special moment until after it has happened and we are looking back.
Why wait a lifetime to use the special things in your life when we already know a lifetime is too short to wait.

6 comments:

danny said...

hear hear! that is an excellent idea and thought...life should be celebrated...I remember a movie quote from one of those old classic movies....I think it was Rosalind Russell, anyway, she said, "Life is a Banquet, and most people are starving!"

Marti said...

thank you for this. i want to be more conscious of this as well in the future.

Rayne said...

This is wonderful! You will find that you enjoy things just as much, if not more, if you use them soon after you getting them and not putting them on hold and that you may even start buying or making more special little things for yourself. I think some of us don't believe we deserve the special things unless it's a special ocassion and that's just not so. You are worth it!

Janet said...

I'm guilty of this , too.Good post!

Dave's blog said...

Shawn, you have a way of making something simple, like the lighting of a candle, into a special occasion.
Tonight,I will light a candle, and play my guitar.
Does citronella count as a special occasion candle?

ValGalArt said...

I am like this too! You remind me to not save everything for some day that might not come... Thanks Shawn!