A Water Park Wow Moment

This weekend my family and I headed to an indoor water park to celebrate my mom's birthday--strange I know.  But it is a chance for all of us to get together as a family to celebrate her birthday! So every year for the past 7 years we have headed to a water park for her birthday. It is well known in my family that I dread this event.  I don't have any kids, I am very wimpy when it comes to water slides (I can't even manage one without getting motion sickness) and overall it is not how I want to spend my weekend.  However, it is a nice chance to hang with my family, my brothers and their wives, my nieces and nephews, and my parents.  As we all get older, these chances of us getting together are more and more rare and precious. But overall other than celebrating the birth of my mother, I admit I don't enjoy this event.

However, this water park weekend was different.  This year, I let the water park experience unfold--I didn't make a plan, I didn't wonder what everyone else was thinking or needed I just was present to the experience.  And I had a great time.  In fact, I had some wow moments.  It is such a gift when you can be present to life and open to life and recognize in the every day moment that you are experiencing is in reality a special event.  I believe wow moments happen frequently, we just miss them because we are too caught up in our lives and not present to what is happening.  So when I can experience an every day wow moment I celebrate because it is the wow moments that get us through life that move us through the  challenging times. The wow moments help us live happier!  The challenge is finding the wow moments in every day life.

My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's a few years back and it is slowly taking over his body, he moves slower and he can't balance as well. He needs us more and we as a family are there for him more.  So usually at the water park,  I leave him in the room, to do his reading or working and head down to the water park, this year I decided to hang with him.  It wasn't even a decision really, just more like I sat down and we started talking and before I knew it was 2 hours later!  We talked about marriage, family, work, health, dying, sex, sickness, politics.  You named it we talked about it.  What a gift that not only I got to have this conversation with my father but I was fully present for it.  I was enjoying every minute and frequently thinking to myself wow--this is an amazing gift! It was for me a wow moment, an every day conversation that because I was present for was a precious gift that I will treasure. And on top of it all--I was dreading the entire weekend.  Here I received an extra wow moment in the midst of a weekend I wasn't looking forward to.  Which showed me that wow moments can come at anytime, we just need to be present and open for them.   I hope dad and I have many, many, more of those conversations and I hope I am present for each and every one of them!

So today pay attention to the wow moments, to the every day conversations that are magical, to the interactions you don't usually pay attention to.  Wow moments are there we just have to be open to them.

What are some wow moments you have experienced that have enhanced your every day life?