Significant Moments

She said it's not jacket weather anymore.

I love that scene from the Wedding Singer. Isn't it funny those moments that occur and because of the circumstances that accompany that interval of time, we can remember every minute detail that happens in that instant? We'll remember smells, the weather, what people were wearing, entire conversations all because of something that affected us enough to imbue the event with meaning. And what's more, sometimes the moments can occur without you even being conscious that they're going on until after you look back on them.

I'll never forget the first time I saw Becca. She had a white button up shirt with 3/4 sleeves, and wore this greenish-blue skirt. She sat in right front of me at church on the left side of the chapel toward the back. She bore her testimony about faith and how she thought that as faithful as the pioneers were, that in our days there are plenty of people with similar kinds of faith. That moment happened about 6 years ago and I can remember everything about it. I had never even seen her before, or even knew she existed before that one fateful Sunday in church, but something about her, how she looked and was attractive to me, where I was at in my dating life, and what she said struck a deep and resonant chord with me. I'll also never forget what I was feeling the last time I was at her house, or what she was wearing that night, and of course the conversation that we had. But that more recent moment I anticipated happening, and was fully aware that it would be permanently be burned onto my memory.

On my run this morning I was thinking about recent significant moments that I've had. They don't always center around love, but often do because of all the emotion that's associated with those kinds of moments. They can be spiritual, accompany a loss or tragedy, or deal with simple pleasures. Some of my favorite recent moments are from playing indoor soccer and good plays that I've made, or times just laughing because of something someone said or did during a game. Lame, right? When I'm bored at work, I'll even hearken back to some of those memories and find refuge in them.

I'll always remember sitting against the bullpen at Angel Stadium watching the fireworks thinking about how good I had it. And I'll never forget the shattering reality of the phone call I received the next day. It's surprising how many meaning-full moments can occur in a short period of time.

Lately I feel like the moments I've had have all been really nice. Getting my acceptance letter was so great. After a phone conversation with Dave during my lunch hour, I felt completely committed to the idea of going back to school. I turned left onto MacArthur from Jamboree and the sun shone brightly when I spoke with him. I think this next month or two will be filled with those kinds of moments. Some of them sad, but also with a lot of good ones mixed in.

There were some moments over the weekend where I wondered if those, too, would be times that in the future that I'll look back on and remember as being so very significant. Sometimes you can tell right away, and sometimes you have to let certain events unfold a little bit before you know. They can be earth-shaking like a 9/11, or be so simple that it happens because of a shift in the tone of a conversation, where new dimensions are added to a relationship born out of a change in how one person perceives another.

I must be in a thoughtful mood today or something.