You'll never be in this exact place, on this exact date, in this exact moment, reading this blog post again. You'll never feel the way you do right now - reading each word with anticipation for the next, skimming each sentence to hurry to the next paragraph, excited to see what this post is about - again. You'll never try to relate these words to your life in this way, again. You'll never read this sentence for the first time again. This is it. This is the first and last time it'll be like this. The first and last time this moment will occur. The first and last time it'll happen this way.
I sat on the couch with my line sister on a Saturday night, drinking homemade Sangria and laughing about life. We usually have these moments at dinner tables of Mexican restaurants, but this time we were hanging out in my humble abode. We used our first glass to review recent updates in our lives. The third glass was used to dig deeper. The second glass, well, we devoured as we applied our lipstick.
"One thing I learned is that this is it. We'll never have this moment again," she said as she recalled last month's trying moments. For that, we were grateful. We were excited at the realization that we can walk out of our darkness and never have to experience it in that way again. Never having to experience the same death, the same illness, the same pain, the same hurt feelings, the same misery, again. But as we continued to dig, with that third glass, it all got deeper.
All of these moments - the bad ones and the good ones - will never revisit us. We'll never feel the exact same about them and we'll never learn the exact same thing from them. In some ways that can be a blessing - in others, not quite. We rush through life wishing away these moments, because they're not enough for us. We want more. We need more. So we throw away our right nows with hopes that our tomorrow will be better. Brighter. Bolder. But those extravagant tomorrows won't ever arrive without taking with us what today was meant to provide. Without the lessons, memories and relationships we were supposed to absorb today, we'll never get to the beauty we anticipate tomorrow. We'll never get to experience the promising moments of tomorrow by dismissing the present moments of today.
We need these moments - all of them. The ones we want to ignore and the ones we want to accept. The ones we want to throw away and the ones we want to lock in a keepsake box. The ones we want to breeze past and the ones we want to relish in.
We miss so much of our journey rushing to the next stop. We ruin our travel looking at our watches worrying about arriving late. We miss everything. The scenery. The weather. Our thoughts. We miss the opportunity to process what's happening, our emotions, our blessings. We miss everything this moment presents hurrying to the next one.
We sat on that couch, drinking the last of the sangria recapping our lives and inspiring each other - but we'll never have that moment again. We did with it what we chose, and luckily that stuck with me. Like the many other simple things I choose to digest; because, the beauty lies in our choice to embrace the moment.
The beauty is that you get to choose what you do with this moment. You get to either wish it away, or while in it. You can decide whether to bask in its glory or quickly dismiss it. You can use this moment to heed its lessons, or use it to hope it'd pass as quickly as it arrived. The beauty is that this moment is yours and you could do with it what you please.
So enjoy this moment. This very right now that you're living. Whether it's what you've dreamed of, or what you woke up in a deep sweat from. Whether it's everything you've wished for, or everything you've wished away. Swallow this moment. Welcome this moment. Become this moment. Because this moment will never present itself again, and I'd hate for you to miss whatever it's meant to bring.
You'll never have this moment again. Take from it what you can.
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