08/10/2026
I’ve been watching Maddie and Millie lately (the dogs we are caring for in Australia) and thinking about how completely dogs live in the present.
In many ways, they remind me of young children. They aren’t thinking about what needs to happen tomorrow or wondering what comes next.
They wake up, stretch, eat, walk, play, sleep.
And somehow, that is enough.
Luca is actually a beautiful reminder of this too. At 10, he still very much lives in the now. While the adults around him are thinking about next week, the next country, the next booking or the next decision, he can become completely absorbed in whatever is happening right in front of him.
As adults, we seem to lose some of that ability.
We need a plan. What’s next? Where are we going? What needs to be done?
And of course we need to plan. But sometimes planning, quietly becomes living ahead. We become so focused on what’s coming that we forget to fully experience what is already here.
And so much of our happiness becomes attached to expectations of the future, when we get there, when this happens, when everything falls into place…
But life rarely happens exactly as we imagine it will.
Sometimes you miss a turn and discover somewhere you never would have found otherwise. Sometimes the completely unplanned moments become the ones you remember most.
Maybe that’s what our pets and our younger children are here to remind us.
Make the plans. But don’t live in them yet.
Enjoy the morning walk. The quiet house. The dog curled up beside you. The child completely absorbed in whatever has captured his attention today.
Because these simple, everyday moments aren’t just the spaces between the big moments of our lives.
They are our lives. 💕
