The other night, I sat on the couch, staring at the cursor on my laptop. You’ve had that experience, haven’t you? Where you sit there, staring at a blank box with a deadline looming heavy over your head. And there sits that cursor. Blinking. I was considering dressing up as a blinking curser the next time I get invited to a costume party. I’d blink my eyes a lot and say bad words. Thank goodness my husband broke into my reverie:
“Let it rest,” he was saying.
“Huh?” I said to him, trying to pull myself away from the hypnotic beat of the cursor.
“Let it rest,” he said again. “Close the laptop, and let it be.”
“But…” I began.
“It will still be there tomorrow,” he said. “Nothing will have changed, and nothing is going to change, just because you sit here, staring at that screen.”
He had a point. So I closed it. Let it rest. Let it be. And the whole entire world opened up in front of me. Just like that.
I remembered outside and music and food and laughter and holding hands and the sound of snow melting from the roof overhanging our front porch. I remembered fresh air and sunshine.
My husband and I hopped on our bikes and rode a few miles to the lake nearby. We sat on a bench that faced the setting sun, and we talked about the future and what we hope will be and what we’re glad we’ve done, and where we’ve been.
On the way home, we stopped next to a young boy and his dad, also on their bikes. We waited for the light to turn green, and the little boy was saying, “There are millions of us, racing across the street!” He hunched low over his handlebars, imagining a throng of bike racers, waiting for the starting gun. “One! Two! Three! Four! Five!” he shouted above the whoosh of cars passing by; and then the light turned green and we were off! All five million of us, in the race of our lives.
The boy and his dad turned off once we crossed the street, but my husband and I pedaled hard and we shouted into the wind, “One! Two! Three! Four! Five!” and laughed out loud as the sun spilled pink and orange across the horizon.
Sometimes, the blinking cursor gets more credit than it’s due, you know?
ABOUT DEIDRA
Deidra is an East Coast girl living in an empty nest under a great expanse of sky in the American Midwest. She will forever be stunned and amazed by grace. Deidra and her husband have been married...
