One More

A 2 year old - A puddle - An analogy on life. 

            The other day I experienced the most comprehensive visualization of the irony in life. Right before my eyes it was laid out, how things work, and why so often we end up landing right smack on our faces. Through the actions of my 2yr old I inevitably had a little chuckle and thought to myself “ Isn't that just the way it always works out?”
            After a quick sibling goodbye at the morning bus-stop, we walked up the  driveway towards our house. My 2 year old was stretching her wings and insisted on making the walk up the hill all by herself. She was laughing and running, and as steep as the hill is, she made it to the top all on her own, and with a smile on her face. She had finished the hard part! It was all level ground from here on in, not even 100 ft left to reach the finish line. To achieve her goal of this completely independent journey, she only had to continue doing exactly what she had already been so successful at. Stay focused, put one foot in front of the other, and continue enjoying what she was doing.
            I spotted it before she did. A distraction, the distraction of all distractions! It was the one thing that no toddler can resist… A puddle, a giant puddle! Waiting in anticipation to see just how she would react, I watched silently. How would this tiny little human handle temptation. It was like watching an old black and white movie in slow motion. She paused for just a moment, her eyes widened as she lifted her head slightly and smiled. Now mesmerized by the glistening surface of the water she steered her little feet in that direction. I called for her but the cunning little girl tipped her head down and looked back through the corner of her eye, as if to assess the situation. She kept her head down and acted like she couldn't hear any of the warnings being called her way. One, two, three steps into the puddle and she looked up with a smile on her face, so pleased with herself. She slowly walked through the puddle savoring every moment she was in contact with the liquid gold. I let go a small sigh of relief when she made it out of the mucky water without issue. She was going to have her cake and eat it too. Not only did she enjoy the intoxication of wading through the water but she was still able to complete her mission. But then she stopped. She turned to face the puddle and took a long look at it, turned, raised her chubby little index finger, and said “One More!”

      One and More…

 two words in the English dictionary that independently are quite innocent, 

but together end up being the undoing of many.

 Just one more!

            I watched as this beautiful little girl walked around to the front of the puddle, unaware of the abrupt ending that her blissful adventure was about to endure. She stepped into the water, one step, two step, JUMP! Jump, smile, splash! She jumped again, and again, loving the effect she was having on the seductive brown liquid as it sprang up to her knees with each bound she took. Jump… splash… wobble… and then she fell. You could see as the joy was ejected from her face only to be replaced by a dumbfounded expression as her once friendly fluid turned into an icy, abrasive, collection of melted snow. Her hands hurt and she was no longer sprinkled with droplets of water at her knees. She was now soaked, clothes saturated and cold, with no hope of completing her independent journey to the house. What feels like crisp, nipping, New England air in the early days of March, can quickly be transformed to piercing, bone-chilling, mid-January temperatures with the addition of wet clothes. She was brushed off, scooped up, and carried inside to warm up with dry clothes. One more time through the puddle was one time too many.

            We see this happen time and time again in our adult lives. We insist on staying out just one more hour after an already late night. We go for that extra cocktail. The snooze button gets hit just one more time. We eat another helping of food, we gain one more pound. Our goal of fitting into that bikini can be swept away one cupcake at a time. People have the tendency to indulge, surround themselves with these indulgences, and wonder why they haven’t been able to stop indulging. We want to have it all. We hoard ‘til we can’t sit, we eat ‘til we can’t move, we party like rock stars and we shop ‘til we drop. Not being able to say enough is enough can leave us, much like my daughter, distracted, fallen flat on our faces, and completely off-track from completing our goals. We’re left sitting in our own hypothetical puddle of mucky water with our heads spinning wondering what just happened.
             The real problem is, we never know when that “ONE MORE” is the one too many. Hindsight is 20/20, and barring the obvious self-destructive behaviors, like, I don’t know, walking off a cliff, is it even possible to know when you've reached the edge? Waking up with a hangover is a clear sign of over doing it the night before, but by how much? Did you really just have one too many? Would you still have woken up with a hangover if you only had a couple of drinks? Do you know your own limits? How far over the speed limit does it take to get a ticket? At what point does enjoying your favorite treat, after a long day in the office, turn into a glycemic balancing act for the rest of your life?
            I don’t have the answers. Even if I did, my answers wouldn't apply to anyone else. I can only hope to learn from my own blunders. I can’t see the future, but I can choose to live without blinders on because, sometimes, if we’re paying attention, we’ll notice the caution signs. We all need the occasional distraction or the occasional treat, or sometimes the occasional bump on the head to get us motivated again. The trick is knowing when something is a distraction or a priority, a dead end road or an uphill battle worth fighting. We all fall down it’s a matter of dusting ourselves off and getting back on track.
            All I know for sure is that the next time I’m outside with my daughter, I’ll smile and watch her, and if she sees a puddle to jump in I’ll tell her, “go ahead, one more time!” She might fall down again but she’ll keep learning to get back up! Sorting out priorities from distractions is a long way out for her. Right now, all that matters is… PUDDLES ARE FUN!