Being Present

Sometimes you have to be right where you are;
not planning for future this or that;
not thinking about "if only I had...".

Right where you are.

That means experiencing pain. That means laughing embarrassingly louder than you meant to.

That means telling the people you're with exactly how much you love them.

That means taking the risk of failing, the risk of your heart breaking, the risk of experiencing more Beauty than you thought possible.

That means acknowledging you may need to ask for help, that you're not as strong as you think, that you may be stronger than you realized.

You may not know all of the answers. Hell, you may not even know what the damned question is.

And...

Being present means that you stand with what you DO know NOW; you stand with what you HOPE for, DREAM about, PLAN for.

You stand with all of those things and just hold them. You don't open those boxes of hopes, dreams, plans, but you know they are there. You know they may adjust and that you will have to add the adjustments to the pieces that are already held.

And you just stand.

Because one part of the hope is the hope that you have done as much as you could, more than what was asked for, given beyond what was expected...and...

You know you have done your best and you hope it is enough.

You remember your past dreams and gently wrap them around yourself. You contemplate those old threads, almost not recognizing them. You know you will weave new dreams from the unraveled threads of the old and you stand.

Right now.

Being present.