I was 12 years old, I was riding my bike home from one of my best friend’s houses. My mind was wandering. I was thinking about the meaning of it all. What is the point of life? As you may guess I was a bit of a dramatic preteen. I recall vividly having the knowledge of how much of my life I was likely to forget. It was a strange realization. I was overwhelmed by how little each individual moment mattered because I was likely to forget it anyway. Instead of being swallowed by the insignificance of this fact, I found it very freeing.
I remember the temperature of the air, the feel of the sun and the slight breeze in my hair as I let go of the handle bars and felt like I could fly. I also remember the complete certainty I had that I was never actually going to remember that moment in time. Those seconds were just for me and only for me. They were not for some future self. I could do whatever I wanted with that moment. Ironically it is one of the clearest memories I have from my childhood.
There are flashes of moments like this throughout my life. I remember clearly as it was yesterday my husband’s arms around me standing on the floor of a U2 concert at Commonwealth Stadium. Bono was singing “One.” The night was beautiful. I had just finished my Master’s degree, a feat I never could have imagined I could accomplish. I had two healthy happy young children at home, an adoring partner and I remember thinking: “Hang on to this moment. It doesn’t get better than this.”
It was one of those moments of mid-life. When there was an acknowledgement that at some point things were going to get more complicated. I knew it clear as Bono was singing. At some point life was going to get hard. It just hadn’t yet. So I held on to that moment with all of my senses. The next day we got the call that my husband’s father had had a massive stroke. I’m grateful that life gave me that moment before everything changed.
There are many moments in time that define us: marriages, births, graduations. Some of course are not as joyous such as break ups, divorces, accidents, abuse, deaths, illness. These moments I have found to often be strangely surreal. The good and the hard milestones are so much of what defines who we are but they are often so far removed from our daily experiences. At least for me, I find that the big moments are rarely a reflection of the real me. The real me is an accumulation of the small moments. The ones in which I am deeply present. They are the ones in which I pause and pay full attention.
I had another one of these moments of bliss just last week. I was on the swing of the century at Galaxyland during fall break with my family. On that swing my son, and my daughter laughed and smiled. We closed our eyes and flew. The rest of life could wait until we were done.