Living in the Moment...

It is always available to us. Always, but so much of the time we are somewhere else other than where we are.  Our feet and bodies occupy space and time that is temporal.  Here. Now.  But our minds are like balloons floating on a rising storm, they are tossed about, here and there, all over the place.  Our minds time travel all the time, to the past where hurt lives and tethers tie.  And then off to the future where we fear what is coming or what is not coming or where we pin our hopes and dreams for a better life.

Lately I have been gifted the present moment.  To actually reside here in this space and time.  It is pretty spectacular really.  Life is good and I feel hopeful not just about the future but about the here and now, even though it is quite uncertain and weird.

With the events of the recent past occurring much against my will and wishes, I seem to have been delivered to a place where my life has been returned to me.  Several of the outside forces, removed, summarily and without notice or indication.  My time is my own now.  No job to check into every day.  No higher authority to tell me what to do and when to do it.  The amount of freedom I feel right now is huge.  And even though it is uncertain, it feels right and good and real.  I am not worried about what happens next...I know I have the requisite skills to deal with it, to manage it, to live with it.  And all of that will come for me in all the here and nows that are linked together moment after moment.

At a time when I could be panicking and full of fear, I am hopeful.  I am happy.  I am content within my own skin.  Sure I have moments of deep grief.  Times where I am acutely sad and lost.   But I have many more times that are just fucking joyful.  Contented and I feel the most alive I have felt in a long time.  I feel as if I have been released from prison and received a pardon.  That is how it feels right now.  God taking from me something that was totally bad for me and holding me back.  And now I exist in the hang time, the place between what has happened and what comes next.  I have no doubt it is good and fulfilling and life sustaining while also being hard and uncertain and with an appropriate amount of angst and grinding.

But in the here and now I am just fine.  This moment is great.  And so were all the moments yesterday.  I do not feel compelled to avoid pain and seek pleasure.  I feel the most free from that life tie than I have in a long time.  A long time.  I feel as though I rented out my life to others and the universe has just swiftly and deliberately returned my life to me.  With a knowing nod, signaling that God knows I know what to do next.  And even in my uncertainty, I know I do know what to do.  And have the willingness to do it...

So I sit this fine Sunday morning, kitten curled upon my lap while I write, sleeping peacefully.  Candle burning lightly on my altar, just after morning meditation and prayer.  And everything feels right, in its place, even though almost nothing has a definitive place right now.  My dad is still gone.  My job also.  What comes next, absolutely uncertain.  And yet I feel the most hopeful I have felt in a long time. Like my life has just been returned to me after a long occupation by a hostile and gruesome opponent.  I feel like I stand on a vacant battlefield, a little bloodied and worn, but no real worse for the wear.  And instead of there being a field of casualties and carnage, there are only flowers.  And grass, and little chipmunks running everywhere.  I don’t know what to do next so I just sit there and trust that I too will be moved forward when it is time.

This present moment is full of potential and I feel myself swept into the rushing current of life in motion.  And I am not being swallowed, I am being led.  I have a stable craft that is seaworthy.  I am good and competent to navigate what comes next for me.  Everything that is gone, is meant to be gone, and I have varying degrees of acceptance with each loss that has befallen me of late.

In this moment, all is well.  And I feel the most alive I have felt in a very long time.  I do not wish things to be different.  I am here, living and loving and present for it all.  And it is all amazing: the pain, the grief, the hurt, the betrayal, the loss, the love, the experience, the life, the gift, the moment.  It is all a blessing and I feel it acutely and the well of gratitude I have for being me, and being here and living this one precious, vital and wonderful life, is deep and true.  And I am here, now, again, still...