I think most of us make an effort to live in the present. Cliché's like "the past is gone and the future isn't here" or "the only time is now" or the more recently popular "YOLO" may have us taking moments to pause and appreciate where we're at, or in the very least temporarily ease previous guilt or future anxieties. We can notice that yes, okay, we're here, and this is now, especially those of us with little ones who are growing up right before our eyes - but one simple moment at the dinner table took my present moment a little deeper.
There was no big thing, just my little family of four gathered in our dining area eating a very basic-bitch meal of chicken and rice. We were taking turns sharing our highs and lows of the day, and an overwhelming thought appeared and was so simple yet so heavy that it took the air from my lungs: this is it, I'm in it. I couldn't tell you one single high or low that was shared over dinner that night, but I can tell you what I was feeling: immensely present. I was looking at the little faces of our daughters in awe of how much they've grown, and yet knowing that they will never be this young or in this moment ever again; knowing that they will one day move out on their own and create their own lives, and that this is IT - this short 18 years that I have them here with me, this ability to wake them in the morning and tuck them in at night, this frustrating time of pre-teen hormones and an ever tattling 8 year old - it's it. It's now.
And it wasn't just a feeling with my kiddos, it's everything about right now. I looked around that dinner table realizing that we're here; here in North Carolina, here in a loving happy marriage, here with our parents alive and well, here with wonderful friends near and far, extended family who love us, more pets than we need but love, careers we are proud of and enjoy, the health of our family during a pandemic. I could have burst at the seams with how all of this filled me with such an appreciation, because at any moment of any day, any one of those things can change. One phone call can change your entire life, one mistake can ruin your marriage, one illness can scare you to death, one wrong move can ruin your career...anything can happen and we can't predict or control how, when or where. All I could do at that dinner table was genuinely know how much I'm in it. I'm in the best days of my life. The happiest days of my life. The days where my parents' voices are only a phone call away, where my kids still need me, where my husband and I obsess over each other, where everything just seems GOOD.
All the struggles we've been through and losses we know we'll suffer ahead have me blissfully stuck in my little bubble of now, and I'm so fortunate to be living this life. So thank you, random Tuesday chicken dinner, because you brought me back to where I'm meant to be: in it.
