Toothpaste

"Mom," my son says, waving an empty toothpaste tube around. "We're out of toothpaste."

I stare back at him, blinking silently as I try to take in what he has just said. No toothpaste? How can that be? I think back to what seems like only a few days ago, when both my husband and I had unknowingly bought toothpaste and brought it home on the same night. We had stashed our extra supply in the linen closet and chuckled about how we would be stocked for a good long while, now.

No toothpaste? I check the linen closet to discover it all gone, just as my son said.

It is only as I am going to the grocery list to write the word "toothpaste" down for what seems like the millionth time that I realize that this little scene is just like life.

There are the times of "too much."

And there are the times of "too little."

And the times of "just enough" are simply lost in the shuffle.

I want to live my life noticing-- and savoring-- those "just enough" times.

ETA: And then I find this quote on Keri Wyatt Kent's blog:

Listen to your life
See if for the fathomless mystery that it is.
In the boredom and pain of it
no less than in the excitement and gladness:
touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it
because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace.
Frederick Buechner