BAD WRITING late at night.

I was watching some movie and the character was discussing that the only moment we have is now, and now, and now, and now…made me think. Our lives are a series of “nows” that continue one after the other. There is no promise of the next one, and there is no going back to the last.

Now…Now…

In the back of my head there has always been this rolling narrator trying to remind me that I have never seen a tomorrow, and yesterday (which is more conceptual that real) is just a quickly receding memory that will fade over time; the painful memories become less painful, and the happy ones become a bit distorted and many forgotten. But now is tangible. Now is real.

Now…Now…

Living in the moment takes on new meaning when you look at it from that perspective. Why waste this “now” fretting over things I cannot change? Why spend too many “nows” thinking about things that may never come over the horizon?

Now…Now…

I am very much a realist, so the idea that we should never think about, or plan for, a future is naïve – at least in our culture. But should we really not live this moment to do that? Should I hold on to worries about every little thing?

Now…Now…

That same narrator in my head (is it just a voice? I sure hope I ain’t crazy!) tells me that this world will take care of us. We will have what we need, maybe not what we want, when it is required. My existence has proven that to be true for me time and again.

Now…Now…

There are tiny moments that do change a life…

CANNOT BELIEVE I FOUND ONE ON THE GOOGLE!!

I grew up just a couple houses down from the Faulkners. They were a really nice older couple with a daughter just a bit younger than me. They had apple trees and Mr. Faulkner made me my first hickory smoked hamburger….mmmmm.

Anyway, they had a yard sale one day; I had to be in elementary school. In that sale they had a faux stained glass, two panel depiction of the Serenity Prayer. It was maybe a nickel or dime, and to this day I still do not know why I did, but I bought it. I do know that I had that up until my late twenties.

During different periods in my life, that prayer has played again and again (Now…) to remind me that there are just things I cannot make better, things I cannot control, things that I may not understand at the time. The words gave me comfort. They served to help keep me in the “now” within my control.

I committed all of this rambling to text because someone said to me on my last rounds around work that “I seemed to have a pretty positive attitude, even with all that has gone on” that I seemed to be ok.

Now…

That movie, that faux stained glass, Joy, my daughter, dishrag and sis….Wheeler, the guy who knew me well enough to know I wasn’t kidding when I said I needed a ride…all of those things came at the right moment in my life. So why shouldn’t I be ok? This old world gives me what I need, for as long as I can take a breath and stand I think that will continue….for now…

And Now, and Now…