On waiting

My life seems to have been placed on pause as I wait for several things to happen. Not a static pause, placed on hold, but a dynamic pause. The distance between one breath and the next, the silence in the tempo of a heartbeat. I wait for one event to occur so that I can begin the next. While that may be true of everyone on a metaphysical level, unfortunately it has tangible meaning for me. I wait for a discharge to my bankruptcy, so that I can begin the process of my divorce. I wait for the divorce, so that hopefully someday I will feel the burden of the change that I've forced my children through lifted. I wait for the day to come when I'm sharing my life with the right woman. I wait, and I bide my time. Not with the grim outlook of the condemned man that I used to be, counting the hours until I could be released from misery, but with the hope and anticipation of a reprieved man, knowing that I have a future, and that joy is in it.

Unfortunately, either habit is unhealthy. Rather than living in the now, and realizing that I have all of the tools, all of the material for happiness and joy in my life, I put my hope for joy in the aftermath of future events. "Someday, I will be happy, but only after this happens, and this happens, and this happens." No, if I take a deep breath and stop looking ahead, and start looking at now, I realize that I am happy now. I have the love of those who are closest to me. I have my health (in large part, discounting my current sinus infection), I have the ability to work, to contribute to society, to enjoy the small moments of my life. I am, indeed, an incredibly lucky man. Life shouldn't be defined in what we anticipate to be our greatest successes, or our worst failures, but rather in the moments that we choose to make memorable. By taking this breath, and typing these words, I create a record of this moment. The music that I write to, the room that I write in, the events of the day, all crystalized in memory because I choose them to be. The littlest of moments, by becoming the memories, alleviate the need to wait. In engaging the now, and letting the past and future sort themselves out according to plan, we may find more pleasure, and less worry.