These Precious Moments

A lot of ideas about today’s entry in this blog have been banging around in my head.  A few rose from my belly, sticking in whatever constitutes a craw.  They billowed in my throat and swarmed into the unsuspecting contours of my soul.

I beat them all down, rejecting each one by the standards of those three pesky rules:

Does this need to be said?

Does this need to be said by me?

Does this need to be said by me now?

I’m left with the unmistakeable grip of wonderment.  Can it really be this hard, finding something to share about my journey to joy? What do I want to tell you?

 Most of all, I want to warn you about the obstacles which have made me stumble, so you might avoid them if you can.

As I drift among the remnants of thoughts plaguing me today, the idea that I’m the guardian of anyone’s heart seems to haunt me.  I haven’t found it as easy to cherish and be cherished as I thought I would.  Mostly I hang back, loving and longing, like the child who cannot yet speak and turns her eyes toward you, willing you to understand.

The hollow sound of my footsteps haunts me by day; the lingering echo wakes me in the still of night.  i ask myself: Have I learned anything, anything at all, in the three-and-a-half years since I began this blog?  Or, indeed:  Did I learn anything in the fifty-nine years that came before this blog?

I owe many of life’s lessons to people who no longer occupy my small cadre of friends.  One taught me that time is our most precious commodity.  The fleeting moments which I have with those whom I love testify to the brevity of life.  Despite my will to live to be 103, I recognize that I might well be gone tomorrow.  Or you might — or you, or you.

I push aside everything that I had thought to say — the pithy quips, the sassy shots.  I’m left with this, and only this:  Take good care — of yourself; but most especially of anyone who opens themselves to you.

It’s the twenty-seventh day of the forty-fourth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

 

 

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