“be there when you get there, but be *here* now”
I found this ‘note to self’ in an old journal today; one of many journals and notebooks stuffed into the forest of cardboard cleared from storage. Perfect timing. My thoughts tend to race to the list of things I’m not doing, with little acknowledgement of the multiple things I am accomplishing.
This little pack and purge holiday has wreaked havoc with my routines. Travel always throws things into a certain amount of upheaval but the extenuating circumstances of this trip have elevated the anarchy. It’s almost comical to imagine I could keep up with yoga, meditation, making balanced home-cooked meals and blogging, all while shredding endless files of paper, organizing an epic yard sale, reuniting with old friends, and going on auditions. And yet there is a crazy expectation to maintain the status-quo of ‘good habits’. The routines will tether me while navigating the rapids of loss – the loss of parents, a home and worldly possessions. It all sounds so dramatic, in a Jane Eyre kind of way. Maybe because I keep referring to my ‘worldly possessions’. But there is something dramatically desperate in clutching to the routines when it is clear the commitment can’t be kept.
But the point is things are always in flux, they’re always shifting and adjusting and we shift and adjust in turn. And life carries on. That applies to everything, from not getting that parking spot you made the U-turn for, to getting that position you’ve coveted for a year. Things change and we adjust. We get to choose whether we adjust in the positive or negative. So I can lament not eating the way I do when I get to my regular markets, OR I can give thanks to Trader Joe’s for having plenty of healthy options to eat on the run. Another adjustment to the gratitude list is being able to soak at the Korean spa for a mere $15 – hours in the various pools more than makes up for the missed yoga. And another thing about being right here right now? Fresh figs and avocados at the Farmer’s Markets. This just can’t happen in Toronto. But being *here* isn’t about fresh fruit, being *here*is about accepting what *is* and embracing it, here and now.
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