Last year, a week from today, the world shut down. We lived our last normal week and didn’t even know it. If you’re anything like me, you have spent every day since then waiting for life to get back to normal. I told myself things like, “If we can just make it through the first two week quarantine,” and then “through the summer,” but now it’s been a whole year, and we are still nowhere close to normal. Something else happened throughout this last year. It is my last year wearing my blue jacket. I was so busy “pushing through,” being completely overwhelmed by change, that now my jacket is almost gone. I blinked and the year is coming to a close. I blinked. and I missed little moments. I blinked and time was gone. I bet you blinked, too. You “pushed through,”’ a little too much and missed the joy right in front of you. You blinked because big events weren’t like they were supposed to be. It’s true; life isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It’s completely okay to be upset about this, but it’s not okay to put yourself on autopilot and check out. All of the little memories to be had during these big life moments are well worth living. It would be a shame if we missed them because we blinked. Next time I won’t blink. For the rest of this year, I am soaking it all in. Wide open eyes. Open hands. Open heart. Big moments might not happen everyday, but the little ones add up. Sometimes something we think is little, ends up being very very big. Kenny Chesney said it best, Don’t Blink.