“I can’t wait!”

“It’s gonna be epic.”

“Someday I’m gonna do that!”

“Are we there yet?”

“Is it Friday yet?”

I say these things a lot.   I tend to be always looking forward, dreaming about what is yet to come, plotting what is next in life, scheming about the future, always chasing the next adventure, living for the weekend.  I like to say that this is because I’m very goal oriented, always trying to better myself, perpetually optimistic about the future.   And these are all true.  But this also means I don’t know how to be in the NOW.  I’m living my life ahead of myself so very often that NOW is often just something I have to survive to get to THEN.  I grumble through my week to get to Friday.  I am already daydreaming about my next trip when I’m on this one.  I’m always saying “someday, I am going to do (whatever it is I am going to do)” while I am actually doing something that I once said that someday I was going to do.  I merely tolerate the here and now.

Frankly, sometimes the now is just a disappointment.  The problem with being an optimist is that you build things up in your head.  Sometimes while chasing my epic adventure, I can’t even remember where I was going or what was going to be so great about it.   When you get to where the grass is always greener, you find that it needs to be mowed every weekend.  Friday seems like the gateway to an epic weekend and then I hit Saturday and realize I have to spend it doing laundry and getting groceries.  And for all my plotting and scheming about the future, somehow I am never prepared for the now.  I have my entire bag packed in my head for a trip I am taking to Mexico next winter, but today I can’t find any matching socks.  So I run around and scramble in the moment, grumbling about having to find and wear pants, and wishing it was Friday.   The now always seems so mundane and chaotic at the same time.

I’ve tried to live more in the moment of now.  I really have.  I’ve made conscious effort to sit and breathe, and close my eyes and feel the moment, and open my eyes and see the moment, experience the beauty around me, savor the everything that is now.  And I’ve gotten better at it.  I can now experience a moment and take a picture of it in my head, imprint it on my soul, and just taste it.  But it doesn’t last long.  It really is just one very short moment and I will be on my way again, chasing the next moments.

Maybe it’s not so bad.  Maybe that’s just kinda who I am.  Or maybe I can learn how to be a little of both.  I’ll keep trying to find my Friday, but learn a little more to enjoy the Tuesdays too.   Life is short, and I don’t wanna miss anything, in the now and in the someday.  And maybe I’ll just wear mismatched socks whenever I want.