My perfectly scheduled afternoon wasn’t running so perfectly.

An upcoming minor surgical procedure required me get a couple of vials of blood drawn ahead of the surgery. The plan allowed me time to get a quick bite to eat after my blood work which would still give me enough time to get back to my desk for a rather important conference call. When the blood work ran much longer than anticipated, eating lunch morphed into grabbing whatever I happened to have in my glove box in the car as I raced back to the office to make my 1:30 call.

In this instance, the only thing to eat in the glove box were Blueberry Pop-Tarts.

I can’t remember the last time I had eaten a Pop-Tart. I’d enjoyed my share of them over my younger years but they just don’t have a place in a more health-conscious food plan I have for myself. As a dad who often transports over-scheduled kids between their over-scheduled appointments, snacks can usually be found in the car to make sure the kids have something in their stomachs before jumping into their next activity.

Not having had Pop-Tarts in quite some time, it was like I was eating them for the first time. I re-discovered the crumbling texture of the crust, the sweetness of the artificial blueberries, the smoothness of the chemically-enhanced frosting on top.

I liked them a lot more before I grew up and knew exactly what I was eating.

When we try things for the first time we do so with a heightened sense of awareness. We notice all the details and nuances. We are present, open, seeking to better understand the entirety of the experience. Yet, the more the experience is repeated that heighten sense of awareness slowly dissipates and any magic eventually morphs into the mundane.

This can happen with food.

This can happen with life.

I am often guilty of eating with out tasting, of obliviously consuming out of hunger and indifferent to what’s plated in front of me. I am also often guilty of living without awareness, of obliviously consuming the hours of a day and somewhat indifferent to the magic the present moment always contains. Just another meal, just another day. Too busy getting somewhere else at the expense of noticing where I already am.

I’m always grateful for life’s little nudges reminding me to pay closer attention to it. On this day, the nudge arrived in the form of a mass produced toaster pastry. Sometimes we forget that life is nothing more than a collection of present moments and we get to live them for the very first time every time. If we choose to. We get to intentionally bring our own heightened sense of awareness into every moment, to be present and open to fully experiencing those moments which make up our one and only life.

I’ve missed a great deal of my life while out looking for it.

That’s no way to live.

Photo by Constantin Panagopoulos on Unsplash

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