We’ve all heard this so many times. And we think what a good idea that is. To stop and take time for ourselves. To take a break from our busy lives where we’re constantly pulled in different directions. When we scarcely have time to finish one project before we have another that has to be done immediately. When at the end of the day we have more still to do than we had accomplished during the day.

It gets to be exhausting. And we find ourselves keeping so busy that we forget to take time to do the things we enjoy. The things that make us who we are. That give us that welcome distraction we all need in order to recharge our batteries.

But sometimes we don’t even have the energy for that. But it’s important.

Now for me, smelling the roses has a special meaning. My mother loved roses, and I still remember the two rose bushes she had planted beside our grape arbor when I was growing up, and how I looked forward to their blooming every spring. There was a white one that bloomed and bloomed. Profusely. There were fluffy white blooms everywhere. But there was no fragrance, no smell.

The other was a deep red rose, so deeply red it was almost black. It was gorgeous, with huge velvety blooms, and it smelled absolutely wonderful. As soon as it started blooming, I’d make sure to go outside and smell its beautiful fragrance every day. It just made me feel good.

And since I didn’t want the other bush to feel left out, I always put my nose in the middle of one of its blooms as well, and every so often I smelled that faint sweet rose smell. Or thought I did.

Maybe it was just the act of reaching out to smell those roses. Taking the time to just stop and recharge. To do a little thing that made me feel good. To breathe in a fragrance of peace and beauty that for a few moments made me forget the world around me.

Unfortunately those particular rose bushes are now gone. But I still remember them, special memories of my youth now well into the latter days of adulthood.

But my love of roses isn’t gone. I have several rose bushes around our back yard. In the spring they’re so full of blooms that all you see is a sea of pink. But if I don’t stop to take care of them, they start to lose their beauty, to fade and lose their petals, and they don’t bloom as much.

Like ourselves, roses who are untended begin to lose their beauty, their fragrance of life; they don’t continue to thrive. And unless we stop to smell that special fragrance, we too, begin to lose our beauty and our zest for life. We become untended and don’t stop to take time to care for ourselves. Caring for our inner self; the thing that makes us “us” is important.

Being active is fine, no matter what our age. But we still have to take the time to rest, to relax, and appreciate the world around us. To stop and smell those roses before they’re gone.

I’ve been very guilty of that lately, I must admit. And one night last week, I decided it was time to stop and take time for just me. To do what I enjoyed, and not what other people wanted to do. And I did. And it was refreshing.

There weren’t any real roses around to smell, but I took the time to sit and read and listen to some of the music I really enjoy. And yes, I even sang along with some of it. I took time to finish a jigsaw puzzle and even colored a couple of pictures.

I recharged my batteries. And the next morning when I went out to water a few flowers before going to work. I walked over to my rose bushes. Even though they’re somewhat faded now because it’s fall, there were still a few blossoms waiting for me to stop and smell.

And I did.

And I’m going to do it more often.

Not always literally, but I’m going to start taking more time to stop and recharge; to do things I really want to do but never seem to find enough time for. I’m going to make that time instead of trying to accomplish a zillion things each week.

And when I see some roses, or other flowers I really like, I’m going to take the time to enjoy them, and take in their beauty.

And I’m going to keep smelling the roses.

For those of you on Facebook, we see this almost daily in someone’s status. We usually laugh it off, make funny comments, or just scroll on by because it’s, well, old news, as the saying goes.

But right now, after a few long and difficult weeks, I think giving up being an adult sounds like a really good thing! I’ve tried it for a lot of years now. The first few were kind of fun. I could sort of do as I wanted and no one told me I couldn’t. Well, that’s not entirely true, because the first few years as an adult I was in college, and I had to do what our instructors said in order to get decent grades, but that’s different.

When we were in high school we couldn’t wait to be 21 and be “adults,” whatever that meant. And yes, back then, you weren’t really an adult til you were 21, although you could get married and serve in the military at 18. And when we graduated from high school at 18, many of us started careers or got married…before we were really “adults.” We couldn’t wait to be grown up, to be adults.

We thought life would suddenly be great when we really became “adults.” Well, that suddenly happened. But it wasn’t the way we expected.

The world we thought we had grown up in, the world that seemed to have so many opportunities and such a bright future, took on a new look of war, social unrest, and rioting. And we realized that maybe being an adult wasn’t quite what it was all rumored to be.

Adulting came with responsibilities, and a lot of them we weren’t ready for. And many of us still aren’t, although we have no choice.

Adulting means making decisions we really don’t want to make; decisions that affect our lives, as well as other people’s, for the rest of our lives. If we make the wrong one, there’s no one around to fix it for us. We have to live with it or work really hard to turn things around.

We thought being an adult would make our lives simple. Instead we had to work for a living; no parents to pay our way any more. We had bills to pay, cars to buy and repair, rent or mortgages to pay. We had to buy our own food, and prepare it, on a daily basis.

Suddenly we became parents, and had responsibilities for our own children. And wondered how our parents ever did it! Raising children was certainly not as easy as we thought.

And then there were the adult problems that came along as we aged. Our health, or our friends’ or loved ones’ health, began to deteriorate. Addictions and rehab became a part of many of our friends’ lives. Serious illnesses attacked many of us or our loved ones, changing our lives forever.

The ones we married and thought would love us forever didn’t. Many of us experienced divorce, and sometimes even more than once. And it was nothing like the breakups we had in high school…the ones we never thought we’d recover from. Until we found someone else the next week.

No, divorce was far worse than that, and we really began to wonder why being an adult was supposed to be so great. Being a child was much easier.

Being an adult is tough. No matter how old we are. It’s a huge responsibility.

So many times we look at our kids, or our grandkids, as the case now is, and for a moment or two we think how wonderful it would be to have that childhood innocence back; to be a child whose biggest concerns are what they’re going to play with next, what their mom or dad is going to fix for dinner, and how they’ll avoid going to bed too early.

And I think back to those long ago times when our own lives were like that. And yes, I get nostalgic and wish I could stop being an adult for awhile and just be a child again. No worries and no responsibilities.

But then, would we want to go through growing up again? Through all it entailed? Would we want to face becoming an adult again and having to go through all the rough times again?

No. Probably not. At least I wouldn’t.

But wouldn’t it be nice to just imagine times being so simple again?

At least for a day or two. How about you?