I Blinked and Three Months Went By

Do you know how long I’ve been avoiding writing in this thing? I’ve been dodging it like the plague. That silent guilt has been there, though, sitting quietly in the back of my mind while I do literally anything else. It doesn’t interrupt or demand much attention. It just rests. And then a day goes by, and another day goes by, and suddenly weeks have passed. I begin to wonder if this is even something to go back to, or if I’ve already let too much time slip.

Someone once told me that if I’m not working on the things I want to, then I just don’t want it badly enough. Those words rang true to me in the moment. They felt sincere and motivating, like a challenge I could rise to. But now, as I sit here day after day, thinking about the same thing over and over again, I start to question that idea. Because what is this, if not desire? When something follows you this persistently, when it resurfaces in every moment, when the guilt of pushing it aside gnaws at you constantly, is that not want?

The truth is, it’s much easier to dream about things than to act on them. I love big dreams. I will dream about things all day. Everything goes well in my daydreams. I could sit there and daydream for hours, and I have. It almost takes away the need to actually do anything. The dreaming feels productive enough to stand in for the doing. Sometimes it feels kinder to myself to stay there.

Acting is different. Acting requires you to confront where you really are, not where you might end up. It asks you to start without guarantees and to be seen halfway through. Sometimes I think I almost resent that. I almost hate that I’m here again, doing things, instead of just imagining them. Imagining is so much safer – it doesn’t ask anything of you. And still, I never stop wanting more than that.

But when I do act on things, something shifts. I feel calmer, I think less, I feel at peace. My mind stops circling. My body catches up, finally, and it reminds me that movement, however small, creates its own type of clarity.

My friend is currently recovering from brain surgery.

I know this feels like a pivot. A sharp, heavy pivot. But as it would do, it’s been on my mind. I can’t even imagine the whole experience she has gone through. I know I have my own blocks around things in my life, my own moments of fear and avoidance, but she has just been through something so immediate, so confronting. Something that strips life back to its essentials. She is well, and she is recovering. I continue to pray for her safe and swift recovery. But she has seen one of the scariest parts of life up close, one you don’t really come back from.

She understands more than ever the importance of life, and the fragility of our everyday. She was always like that regardless, constantly looking at the positives, making the most of her life, but now this has added a deeper layer. Most of us understand this in theory. We’re told to be grateful, to appreciate our time. We nod along, because of course we do. Why wouldn’t we be grateful? But then the mundane of the everyday takes over. Frustrations rise over missed trains, emails that need replying to. Deadlines feel urgent until they don’t. It’s all the small, constant irritations that slowly dull our awareness. How often do we actually stop?

Today, after speaking to my friend on the phone, seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, hearing her talk about what she’s been through, something solidified in me. I felt grateful in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I was grateful for her safety. I was thankful to feel her warmth again. And I was, almost selfishly, inspired. Inspired to do better. Inspired to do more. Inspired to stop postponing myself. Inspired to take more time to just be myself. To take all the time I can to appreciate the things I’m so lucky to do without thinking twice. And yet I know how easily I’ll forget this feeling.

We spend so much time looking backwards, replaying moments we think we wasted. We obsess over the should-haves, the could-haves, the what-ifs. Then the pendulum swings forward, and we start imagining futures with hope or dread, making plans for versions of our lives that haven’t yet come to pass. We forget about the present. We acknowledge it, sure, in an objective way, but how often do we actually feel it, or register that we feel it? It’s harder than it sounds. It doesn’t last very long. It’s literally a blink-and-you-miss-it moment.

And I did miss it. Time is one of those things that feel endless until we think it’s running out. In my mind, I’m always treating time as if there’s an endless supply of moments, of love, of opportunities, so much so that I feel comfortable leaving things until ‘next time.’ I wonder how much we lose in the process.

Today, as I took out my notepad and pen and started writing, it registered to me quietly and clearly that this was the first time I’d really been here in three months.

But it’s something worth striving for. That clarity of action, that peacefulness of presence. It makes it easy for that overwhelming gratitude of being to start to flow.

They say you never appreciate what you have until it’s gone. I say, why don’t we start?