Remember when fifty sounded ancient? I used to look at people in their fifties and think they had it all figured out: steady, wise, settled. Now here I am, and I’m still wondering where the time went and how on earth I got here so quickly. My husband and I have been talking lately about retirement. We've always planned for it, but now the conversations have more substance to them. What was once far in the future is approaching the doorstep. I new I would age, I just thought it would take longer.

The days sometimes feel slow, but the years seem to sprint. One minute I’m helping a toddler understand why we don’t lick the bathtub, and the next I’m listening to my teenager talk about AP classes and college, while hubby and I have shifted from "Hey we could..." to "It makes sense to..." conversations about our future.

I keep waiting for life to feel longer, slower, more spacious. But time has a way of slipping through our fingers no matter how tightly we try to hold it. The routines that once felt ordinary become the memories we cling to. The people we thought would always be around become stories we tell. And all the while, the calendar keeps flipping whether we feel ready or not.

Lately I’ve been wondering if the real invitation isn’t to try to slow life down, but to be more awake to the moments we’re actually living. The conversations in the car. The quiet cup of coffee before anyone else wakes up. The silly jokes around the dinner table. The soft ache that reminds us we’ve been moving, working, loving.

What if holiness is woven into all of that? What if the sacred isn’t somewhere “out there,” but right here in the ordinary time we keep trying to outpace?

My wish for you this week, Reader, is that you notice the beauty tucked into the middle of your everyday. May you savor the moments that blink past. May you find gratitude for the life you’re living, right now, right here. And may you trust that even as the years rush on, there is a presence holding you steady in every single breath. That's the fiLLLed life.

Live a fiLLLed life, Melissa ​