As I sit here writing this I feel so blessed and so grateful for all that is in my life. I have more than I could create, buy, promote and yet it is my life. Every blessing. I fear putting it out in the universe because it would seem to good to be true which means that it could not sustain, it cannot endure…or can it?
I remember telling my mom a month before she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer that “my life was so perfect it scared me”…and then it wasn’t. She was diagnosed and in that moment the clock began ticking on what would be her final year; almost to the day. Things didn’t feel so perfect then but what I began to realize as the year ticked on was that if things had not been so “perfect” at that moment in time I never would have been able to spend her last year with her the way I did.
It is in those moments in our life when things are not ideal that we long for what we once had, and then start to acknowledge the perfection that was once our reality. This is why living in the present is an ongoing mantra that we hear the most these days. Living in the past keeps us there and worrying, lamenting even looking forward to the future is “torture” as the monks would say, as there is no truth there.
What I learned about living in the present during “her” final year is that I did a lot of it. There was nowhere else I wanted to be and would not leave her side in her last three weeks. I was present; time had no meaning, no value and knowing that all was “perfect” in my alternate universe allowed me to be present with her every breath, every laugh, wince or muted moments of wit. Even in what felt like the worst moments of my life I was blessed beyond measure.
Today I am reminded every moment of every day that I am still blessed beyond measure. I have a husband that “adores me” as told to me recently by a friend. I have kids that have created a life for themselves that makes me proud to be their mother. I have two grandchildren that make my heart skip a beat and make everything right in the world regardless of what is going on in our lives. I am blessed to have many fathers and one biological Cuban that makes me proud to call him Dad. I am blessed to have three Aunts that treat me and mine like we are there children…and in that line-up not one mention of what I have or where I have been in my life as it simply does not matter. It has taken years to come to the reality that what creates value in ones life is those that they surround themselves, and that is all.
As I sit here this Christmas morning waiting for the day to begin I am in the present. In this moment. Anxious, waiting, unsure of the swirl of emotions that surrounds me but owning it. Enjoy TODAY, stay in the moments, don’t get ahead of where you are…for the present is the gift that God has offered you today, right now.
Life as I see it — L.
Originally published at http://alwaysstarting.com on December 25, 2019.