Here and Now

Yesterday as Sara was driving Charlotte and I home from the park, she said something that changed everything in my world.

As we were driving, her girls were planning out what they would eat for lunch, focusing very hard on the many food choices they had waiting for them when they got home. At one point Sara said,"Girls, I want you to stop and take a moment, breathe and take in this moment, because what just happened and what is going to happen doesn't exsist, this moment is now and we only get this moment once." I may be paraphrasing, but I did exactly as she asked and that statement stuck with me for the rest of the day

I've been experiencing some intersting feelings lately that have been a little disconcerting. Lately. the energy that has surrounded me has felt very similar to the energy that swirled around me durimg my first summer in Connecticut, when I was starting to date and fall in love with my boyfriend there.

I was assuming I was feeling that way because I am facing my first summer since the stroke where I feel physically capable of enjoying it, the excitement of that, I assumed was mimicking the excitement of new love, I also assumed that I was supposed to be feeling that way for whatever reason, maybe it was my body and spirit's way of making peace with my past, so I've just been living in it and feeling the full strength of it, even though it was pulling me out of my present.

As I sat with Charlotte yesterday afternoon, I turned what Sara had said over and over in my head, yes, the past doesn't exsist anymore and yes now is the only now I get. But the past does exsist, it exsists in my heart, spirit, mind and soul and I may never experience that present again, but I got to once and I can always remember my perfect summer of love where I loved my new man so fiercely where my adoration for another person was as bottomless as it ever had been when I learned to love the new town I had choosen as my home.

And even though that relationship ended very badly, as many fast and passionate love affairs do, thank goodness I have that experience written into my spiritual DNA, I'm lucky to know what ecstatic, endless love like that feels like, and because I know what it is, I can show Charlotte that love, because it is the same kind of deep limitless love I feel for her.

And as I ended that train of thought, I made peace with New Haven, Connecticut and all that happened there to change me,  I let it go and looked at the moment I was in and loved it, because, someday I will want to remember the simplicity of watching my 19-month-old spin in the middle of the living room, to remember the depth of love I felt for her in that moment, after a successful day at the park together, to remember the deep satisfaction of a job well done, caring for the child that 19 monthss ago I never thought I'd be able to care for effectively.

Since then I've felt, dare I say it? Zen. Happy. Peacful. So, here's my advice, stop. Breathe and notice the moment. You'll never get it again and you'll never want to forget it.