I Would Rather Be In Bed

“Save it for later.”

I’ve used that phrase more times than I care to admit. Just save it for later. Or, I’ll do it later. I told myself that just the other day as I was reaching into my cabinet to pull out new hand soap for the bathroom and kitchen as the previous ones had reached empty.

Just for some background, I’m a Bath and Body Works girl through and through. I don’t think I’m too crazy about it. I don’t have a secret stash of five hundred candles in the basement or anything like that. But I do have on solid shelf in the hall closed filled with hand soaps, body wash, lotions and body spray. Basically, if you want to smell good, I got it covered. My fiancé makes fun of me but listen…we are not ever running out of soap at our house. When COVID hit and there was a sudden soap shortage, I was still good for more than a year.

I have a weird mindset when it comes to cleaning supplies and bathroom supplies. I’m always overstocked on cleaning supplies and anything you might need in the bathroom to keep clean. Need six months worth of toothpaste? I got you. Why? I have no idea what instilled this overstocking in me but it actually gives me anxiety to get low on those items, the thought of running out of something I might need to keep my home or myself clean is actually unbearable.

I’m always just…saving for later.

As I reached in my cabinet to pull out a hand soap the other day I thought “Oh no, I really like this one, I’m going to save it for later.” Then, a moment later I asked myself…why? When is later? Who decides? Really, the answer is, I do. I do like the smell of this soap but I like all of them, otherwise, I wouldn’t have bought them. What it my mind is making this soap seem more special than the rest? When will later be? When will I decide it’s finally time to use it? When will I enjoy it even knowing the smell may be fleeting? Maybe Bath and Body Works will discontinue this scent some time in the future and I’ll never have it again but is this really impacting my life? Why not enjoy it now?

It’s so difficult, I think, to apply this to a real world situation. Soap honestly means nothing at all in the grand scheme of life. However, the time in which we spend living our lives now is so important. It seems we are always “saving for later” or “getting to it later”. We sacrifice things now to put more money in retirement later. While this is wise, sacrificing a life you have now for one you may have later entirely seems like a poor life plan to me. We all hope to make it to retirement and live all the adventures we have dreamed about for so long. But what if we don’t? Why aren’t we taking time to live some of those adventures now?

Parents spend so much time preening and pruning children for a future in a harsh reality of life but we forget that later…sometimes sacrifices so much of now. I want my children to become good, productive members of society, but I also want them to look back at this time of their lives and feel like they were doing more than living by a report card. I want them to have adventures and be curious and feel a little amazed about the beautiful world around them.

When is later? We could be waiting for later for the rest of our lives and still never find the time. Time is only as finite as we make it. You could spend all day watching Netflix and say later “Oh, I just didn’t have time to go to the gym today, I’ll get to it later.” But when….when is later. When are your goals and dreams more important than the meaningless of every day?

You can have two hours today to work on your dreams. Whether it be losing weight, writing a novel, creating new menu items for your restaurant, finding inner peace, learning a new skill…whatever it is you want! Or, you can save it for later and find time an endless enemy you feel you’ll never overcome.

I can tell you that soap is sitting in my bathroom being used now, because I’m tired of saving it for later.

Let’s do it now.