Before You Wish This Season Away

Every August feels like a contradiction.

The hottest days of the year are often still ahead of us, yet our minds have already begun to move on. Store shelves fill with pumpkins while we're still wearing flip-flops. Football previews replace vacation commercials. School supplies appear where pool toys sat just a few weeks earlier. Without realizing it, we begin living in the next season before this one has even finished.

The older I've gotten, the more I've realized that we don't just do this with the calendar. We do it with life.

We're always looking ahead to what we believe will be the better chapter. As children, we count down the days until summer break. As teenagers, we can't wait to drive. As young adults, we look forward to graduating, finding a career, buying a home, getting married, starting a family, retiring. Every milestone becomes a destination, and somewhere along the way we convince ourselves that happiness is waiting just beyond whatever comes next.

I've caught myself doing it this summer.

One of the unexpected joys of the past few months has been watching Kaven and Weston discover how much they love swimming. They've reached the point where a trip to the beach, the lake or a pool isn't just something to do on a hot afternoon… it's the highlight of their day. Kaven has embraced his role as big brother, encouraging Wes every chance he gets, while Wes has developed the fearless confidence that only a two-year-old can have. Watching them together has been one of those quiet reminders that childhood doesn't happen in years. It happens in afternoons.

Not long ago, I found myself researching pools for our backyard. The boys have enjoyed the water so much that I was already imagining what next summer could look like. More afternoons together. More cannonballs. More memories.

It wasn't until later that I realized what I was doing.

I had started planning for next summer before this one was even over.

There is nothing wrong with looking forward to the future. In fact, I think hope is one of life's greatest gifts. The problem comes when our excitement for what's next distracts us from appreciating what's now.

I catch myself doing it in other ways too. By the time August arrives, my calendar is filling with fall weddings, and I'll admit it—I'm looking forward to the first ceremony where I don't sweat through a suit before cocktail hour. Fall is my busiest season as an officiant, and there is something special about standing beneath changing leaves on a crisp autumn afternoon.

But if all I think about is September and October, I'll miss everything that makes August worth remembering.

The same is true for the couples I work with.

At some point during almost every engagement, I hear a variation of the same sentence: "We just can't wait for the wedding planning to be over." I understand exactly what they mean. Planning a wedding can be exciting, but it can also feel overwhelming. There are decisions to make, budgets to balance, timelines to coordinate, some wedding officiant who's asking more questions about your relationship than your own parents have over the last twenty years, and enough opinions from family and friends to make even the simplest choices feel complicated.

And occasionally on my end, I'll receive an inquiry from a couple looking for something "quick," "easy," or "simple." Every couple should celebrate their marriage in a way that reflects who they are, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing an intimate ceremony. But I've learned that when the goal is simply to get through one of life's biggest moments as quickly as possible, I'm probably not the right fit.

The point is, my job has never been to make a ceremony longer. It's to make it meaningful.

Ironically, one of the promises I make every couple is that I'll make the ceremony feel effortless. Calm. Natural. Like it was always meant to happen that way. The reason it feels that way isn't because the moment is simple; it's because the moment deserves the care required to make it seem simple.

That idea extends far beyond weddings.

Some of the most meaningful parts of life rarely announce themselves while they're happening. I’ve talked about it many times before… they arrive disguised as ordinary moments… a family dinner, an evening walk, a day at the beach, a child asking if they can jump in the pool one more time. They don't feel historic in the moment. They simply feel normal.

Only later do we realize they were the moments that quietly became our favorite memories.

There's a line from “The Office” that has stayed with me for years. During the last episode, Andy Bernard wonders whether there's a way to “know you're living in the good old days before you've actually left them.” It's an ironic line, being said during the last episode, but there's something deeply true about it. We spend so much time looking ahead that we often fail to recognize how remarkable the present already is… or in “The Office” case, the first 7 seasons were.

Maybe that's August's quiet lesson.

The next season will arrive soon enough. Fall will come. The weddings on my calendar will be celebrated. The boys will outgrow their puddle jumpers, and someday they'll probably think they're too old to ask Dad to come swimming.

Life will keep moving, just as it always has. Until then, I'm going to do my best to stay where my feet are.

Because I've started to believe that the good old days aren't something we find when we look back.

They're something we almost miss because we were too busy looking ahead.