Friday, October 28, 2011

Getting Back

For the longest time I thought I wanted to get ahead.  I was rushing for the next "big thing" that was coming.  I was looking for adventure.  I was seeking new things, new experiences and new ways to do something old.  I always wanted to be somewhere different, know different people, be in a time somewhere in the future.  The future always seemed bright and better than the today I was living in.  I was rushing through the daily things just so that I could get ahead.

I still sort of do that now.  I live for what's ahead.  I'm trying to be better about it.  Just breathing in the day to day things that come and go, ever so quietly.  Because I realize that pretty soon the future I thought I was waiting for is today, and I don't even know how I got here.  I was so busy rushing through it that I couldn't enjoy it.

The weird thing for me though, is that even though I am still waiting for something that is unknown and most definitely in the future...I am trapped in the thoughts in my mind that getting back, moving backwards would make things better.  I keep looking behind me at all I lost, all I left behind, all the mistakes I made, all the poor choices that have left me half empty and wholly broken. 

It's unlike me to look back.  I have never really been one to do so.  But something about the recent, and not so recent past has been haunting me.  I do not recognize who I am anymore.  I do not know where to plant my feet.  I do not know what is true and what is fabricated in my mind.  I am unsteady and unsure and I am looking back and holding on to memories and people and little moments in the day to day life that I let pass me by so fast.  When I was living in the time "back then" I didn't think about what I had.  I thought I had it bad, and awful, so I was just doing everything I could to get out of it. 

Looking back...I wish I could just go back.  I know it's impossible.  So, I am just trying to take it day-by-day and realize that this right now, right here, in the middle of a Barnes and Noble on a Friday night, alone...it's my life.  It's okay.  Beacuse some things are beautiful about it.  There are other people around me on their laptops, and I can smell the coffee brewing at Starbucks and people are reading and holding hands and sitting alone and dressed crazy.  And it's just life.  Happening right here.  Right around me. 

As much as I want to be back to where I was, and as broken as my heart is, I am just trying to love the now.  Love the people I am with.  Love the ones who I can share my life with.  There are several people I don't get to see, and lost friends, and missing friends, and all sorts of things that have happened but I am not alone.  Just this morning I saw two old friends from high school in the Starbucks, and I was reminded how nice it is to see old familiar faces.  And today at school, I was reminded that kids just want to have fun and laugh and play jokes and dress up in costumes and have fun. I realize that it's a blessing to be around them all day because they breathe life into this world.  These children who I work with every day are the future, and in some way, I am helping shape the future.  That is amazing.

The heaviness of my heart is less when I am at school, around my students.  So, I have to be thankful for that.  It is in the later hours of the night, when I realize that I don't get to hold hands or kiss or feel loved by someone, that I get sad.  I do wish I had someone here next to me reading his book or holding my hand or sipping hot cocoa with me.  I just have to know that might just have to be a part of my future, and not a part of my now.  It's hard because I had it, and I know how wonderful it was, and I was stupid and I did selfish and reckless things.  I guess, next time it comes around, if it ever does again, I will know the true value of it.  And, hopefully then I won't be thinking about getting it back, or going back, or wanting it back.  I will know that what I have is a gift and I will cherish it.

I just hope I don't have to wait too long...I get impatient about these sorts of things.

What I also hope, is that I am not the only one who feels this way.







1 comment:

  1. You are going to find everything you want in life. Don't give up! It happens when you least expect it!

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