“Love fiercely, because this all ends.”
(unknown)
A few blogs ago I wrote about how grateful I was for having a healthy baby after a scary pregnancy.
Literal days later we had a bit of a health scare with Tilly – some abnormal bruising led to some tests, the tests led to some waiting, and eventually we were given the “we don’t know what it is, but we ruled out leukemia” talk from the doctor.
Leukemia?? Although it was used in attempted reassurance the word struck fear into my heart. (Don’t even get me started on the poor people skills it took to think that would be reassuring, but I digress.)
“Did I jinx us?” I wondered to a friend who also has a young baby. I reeled with uncertainty and fear that I’d tempted fate by talking so certainly about my daughter’s good health.
She pointed out that health is always tenuous and uncertain, whether it’s our baby’s or anyone else.
“We only really know that we have a healthy baby in this moment,” she said, continuing to expand on how—although uncertainty can be scary—it can also open us to this incredible gratitude for what we still have.
This was one of those moments where you hear something you’ve sorta heard (and even said) a million times but it registers in a new way.
Aaaaah.
I realized that EVERYTHING I say I’m grateful for on any given day is ALSO tenuous, uncertain, and not guaranteed the next day.
This lack of certainty surfaced when talking about something as fragile as my baby, but NONE of it is guaranteed.
My hubby?
My cats?
My house?
All impermanent.
My friends?
My health?
The redwoods?
All in a constant state of change.
I can always be grateful today – but nothing is guaranteed tomorrow.
Now, it can be a terrifying to realize that holding onto the things we love is like grasping water that just keeps running through our hands – fruitless. They will change, and eventually all of it will go.
But this doesn’t have to strike us with fear of what we’ll lose – instead it can be this insanely profound gift.
Because how holy and sacred is all this stuff we actually have today, right?
I mean, even the parts of life we don’t think to be grateful for – the menial, the normal, the repetitive – it’s all going to end.
Someday it too, will be rendered sacred.
***
A great illustration of this is an 80’s movie called “Peggy Sue Got Married.”
It’s about this woman who goes to her high school reunion, faints, and wakes up back in high school (in the year 1960) at age 17.
She goes through the “average” motions of a day in the life of her high school self: math class, cheer-leading practice, lunch in the cafeteria, that type of thing. Except she’s secretly 38 and this is all long past, so she’s FREAKING OUT about how insanely incredible all of it is.
She’s REALLY stoked to be in class, she says all her cheers with a bit too much excitement, and people are thinking she’s literally drunk because she’s having such big reactions to things that they think are BO-RING.
After school’s out she goes to what (at the time) was her family home. She begins fussing over her still-little sister, marveling at how young her mom looks, and then when her grandma calls on the phone all bets are off: she’s sobbing because (to her) grandma has been dead for years.
The movie is a TRIP and I’m explaining so much of the plot because we could all learn something pretty valuable from Peggy Sue: we could learn how to time travel too.
Here’s what I mean:
Imagine for a second that you’re travelling backward twenty or thirty years to your former self.
This likely changes a lot in your life: maybe it brings back an old job, school, pets, friends, and likely people who have passed away.
We’d all just survived Y2K and we hadn’t yet confronted the Kardashians.
Things undoubtedly looked way different twenty years ago, right? Can you imagine if (like Peggy Sue) you were suddenly back inside that version of your life, going to that old job (or school) – hanging out with those old friends, cuddling up with your old pup or even an old flame?
Think of where you lived, who you called on the phone, even the stuff that you worried about…
All of it is rendered just a little more special since it’s now long gone, right?
And even though decades ago that job (or school/person/activity) might have been BO-RING – now it might be kinda cool to work there for just one day…to talk to that person again (and have it be normal)…or even just to spend a day walking around before everybody was staring at screens.
Just like your former life would be pretty special to present-day-you, the life you’re living RIGHT NOW will someday be a distant memory…one that would be pretty special to your future self.
For example, sometimes I’ll pretend that I’m secretly 65-year-old Melissa – thirty years in the future.
Through some stroke of fate (or Christmas eve Bah Humbug type scenario) I’ve been granted access to my former 35-year-old life.
Although my 65-year-old-self has a grown daughter, she’s delighted to travel back and hold little Tilly’s baby body and marvel at those chubby cheeks.
Older Melissa is just tickled to see young/present day me pounding at the keyboard, cat on lap, overwhelmed with building a business, being a mom, and tired all the time.
And don’t get me wrong, future me is awesome too – way more awesome than I can even imagine and somehow she has an ass that just won’t quit. (I mean seriously, do I take up Pilates or something?)
But the ordinary things— like my elderly neighbors raking leaves, texts from current close friends, and piles of baby laundry will all, someday, be rendered extraordinary.
The impermanence of it all is exactly what makes it sacred.
This doesn’t mean we live in fear of what we’ll lose, or act from a place of “it’s all downhill from here.”
Time travelling – or simply realization of impermanence – just means that we fully become aware of the gifts we already have.
It means we don’t force our present gratitude lists to be unchanging or hold on frantically to our children, our jobs, or our “stuff” for fear that if we don’t, we’ll lose it all.
The truth is that we’re going to lose it someday no matter what – and that’s okay.
The truth is that it’s all impermanent, and that’s exactly what makes it sacred.
So, take a look around the space you’re in right now.
What might be different in twenty years? What normal, ordinary, and average moments might you someday miss? How can you appreciate them more through the eyes of future you today?
Isn’t it all already sacred?
xo,
Melissa
Also – here’s a little clip of Peggy Sue Got Married if you’re interested. It’s one of my favorite films.
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