Let’s take a stroll down memory lane. Look over there! There are the cornfields next to my street. Let’s go see what we can find.

There is the playground. Let’s go play.

So many choices. What do I want to do first? Over there! The horses.

You remember those old rocking horses on the big springs? I could rock that thing as hard as possible. Back and forth, faster and faster. Then my feet would hit the ground and…nothing. After all that movement, I hadn’t gone anywhere. Everything looked exactly the same.

Maybe the monkey bars would get me somewhere. Remember those? Forward, backward, sometimes twisting around or hanging upside down. Why not? Getting there was half the fun.

We made it all the way to the top. Have a seat. Look around. The whole playground was waiting for us. We got to choose which direction we wanted to go, but eventually those bars came to an end.

Maybe we need a little speed. We need to go faster.

I know! Grab a piece of wax paper. Let’s go to the slide.

Remember doing that? We’d climb what seemed like a mountain of stairs, tuck the wax paper underneath us and push off. Down that old metal slide we’d go faster than it was ever intended. What a rush! Of course, once wasn’t enough. Back up the stairs and down again.

No matter how fast that ride was, there was always the bottom. Stop. Right there at the end.

There had to be a way around all this stopping.

Then came the merry-go-round.

Now that was different. We’d grab one of those bars and run beside it, pushing as hard as we could before jumping on. Getting closer to the center meant even more speed after we climbed aboard. Around and around we went, faster and faster.

Faster was exactly what I wanted.

Then somebody standing outside the circle decided we needed a little help and gave us another push. Someone else joined in. Before long everybody was helping. At least they thought they were helping.

The trees, swings and everything else rushed past until the whole playground became a blur. Faster wasn’t fun anymore. Holding on became more important than going faster.

Getting off wasn’t so easy when someone else was controlling the speed.

Then suddenly the world stopped.

Well, the merry-go-round stopped. My head didn’t. The playground was still spinning even though my feet were back on the ground.

Too much was happening.

Funny how life can feel that way too.

Then I saw the swings.

Oh, those swings. Hop on.

Remember pumping your legs harder and harder to see how high you could go? Higher and higher, pushing through the air with the wind blowing through your hair.

Those clouds seemed almost close enough to touch.

There they were. Those special things waiting to be done. Dreams still out there.

And the best part about the swing? You could jump whenever you wanted.

So off I went.

For a moment, I flew.

Then my feet landed on the ground again. Sometimes there was a little wiggle. Sometimes I was even a little shaken up.

But my feet always found the ground.

It was time to think.

There is that old tree.

Climbing was part of the adventure. The big sturdy branches were easy to trust. The branches became smaller as we climbed and needed a little more care. Then there it was. A spot tucked against the trunk and hidden behind the leaves.

The place that would protect me.

Hidden among those leaves was room to take a breath and look at everything surrounding me. Mother Nature had me. There was time to rest, time to think and time to decide which direction to go next.

Mother Nature whispered in my ear.

There will always be something else to do, dear child. Some things can wait. Some can’t.

She’s right.

As a responsible adult, there is always going to be something else to do. Finish one thing and another is waiting.

Breaking that circle isn’t necessarily what I want. A clean house feels good to come home to. People we love sometimes need us. Our health needs attention.

But somewhere inside that mundane circle is the life I feel I am missing.

I already know when the time is.

Now I have to decide what can wait.