The ice cream is melting faster than she can eat it. Lick, lick, slurp, splat. I watch it drip down her arm and onto her shorts. Another drip slides down her leg onto her sneaker. She doesn't even notice. She continues licking, lost in her happy, sticky sweet treat. She eats it with reckless abandon -- not a care in the world. It doesn't matter how messy she gets. She is loving every minute of this.
It occurs to me just then, as we sit in the blazing afternoon sun on the front porch, that there is a lesson to be learned from watching a child eat ice cream. I am newly unemployed. I don't know where or when I will work again. I have several job options. Which is best for me? For the family? What will happen next week? Or, in three months? Will we be o.k.?
Does it really matter? Eating ice cream is about staying in the moment. As soon as you let your mind wander and worry, your ice cream melts. Instead of enjoying it, it is simply gone, a melted mass of goo on the ground.
Just eat your damn ice cream. Smile. Get a little dirty and sticky. Let it drip on you -- Life is messy. You can clean up later.
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