All we have is this moment.

That is what I keep telling myself these days. Bill and I are staring down the barrels of two vastly different paths, and each requires some major life changes in the form of a hard, massive, aneurysm-inducing decision. With every day that passes, we are feeling our fingers squeezing slightly harder on the trigger, knowing we are speeding toward something world-altering. All we can do is attempt to prepare for the unknown, but really, how do you prepare for uncertainty? How do you prepare when you don’t know what, exactly, it is you are preparing for?

Well, let me tell you, this girl can prepare. And prepare. And PREPARE.

And beyond the practical tasks and to-dos that we generally associate with this type of precautionary activity, I have found through trial and error that some of my favorite ways to quote-unquote “prepare” for major changes include things like:

• Worrying.
• Being concerned.
• Stressing out.
• Imagining worst possible outcomes.
• Throwing myself down on the couch/bed/ground like a small child.
• Engaging in an overall sense of extreme panic.
• And so on.

When I’ve done a sufficient amount of all THAT, I go straight into doing every possible thing I can think of to avoid imminent failure and head in the basic direction of certifiable insanity. I become manic, even. I begin tackling anything and everything that will give me any sense of control, and I tackle them to the nines. The obsessive, compulsive, Type A nines.

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately.

Yeah. I don’t like it. While all of that general hysteria has been my default reaction – my coping BFF, if you will – in the past, I have found myself with a new fight on my plate. I’ve been working hard at gathering a new arsenal to carry me through life, consisting of patience, love, joy, and above all, mindfulness. Being in the present. Concerning myself with the immediate. Realizing, as Eckhart Tolle himself would say, the power of NOW.

These major decisions, these defining moments, these life-altering times… They are going to change a lot of things for us. And if you know us personally, they could potentially change our relationship with you in a heart-wrenching way. They are simultaneously exciting and terrifying, two qualities that I find very distracting. In fact, it’s been hard not to constantly dwell on the sacrifices that may be made in the very near future of things we love, cherish, and have worked incredibly hard for. It’s also nearly impossible to get off this goddamn emotional roller coaster of up and down, up and down, wired and exhausted, energized and petrified. I’m getting tired just WRITING about it.

So I’m going to stop writing about it and start writing about something else, like the realization I have had in the last few months that if I keep letting my mind dictate my minutes instead of my heart, I’m going to miss out on the very things I’m so nervous about losing. If I let fear and anxiety run the show, I simply cannot enjoy the wonderful world around me. The changes are coming, yes. But they have not happened yet. The future doesn’t exist. I can’t see how things are going to play out, and there is nothing to be done about it right this moment, so worrying and panicking and imagining and throwing myself on the floor in exasperation are merely wasted energy. I should be savoring the way my world is now, so that when the time comes I do not regret an instant of how I have lived and loved and cherished. So that is my new plan: to live, to love, to cherish… right now. This is harder than it seems, but well worth the effort.

Because lately I’ve found that if you look too far ahead, you miss the flowers at your feet.

I apologize for the vague details. Rest assured, darling, that all will be revealed soon.

xo