Living My Life "Today"

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that's why it's called the present" what a clever saying and how true! It doesn't say this but today is the only time I can affect. What I do today becomes what I did when today is over, but it can't be changed-I already did it. All I can do is a different thing now.

For example, I was an unmarried, pregnant teenager. Many people judged and shunned me, and didn't show me love but disapproval. All they can do now is be nice and loving today. All I can do now is forgive them, hope they'll do better today, and not let it affect my life. What's done is done and I can either
hold a forever grudge or move on with my life. For me, the experience happened many years ago and doesn't affect my life today.

I heard a talk once where the guy said, "The best time to plant a tree is right now". I love that statement! If I didn't plant the tree before it doesn't matter because I can plant it now. Just because I didn't plant it back then doesn't mean I can't plant it. In my mind it's never too late to plant as long as the garden is still there.

Living in the Past is Fantasy

Returning home was not the same once I left; I wasn't the same person. (I'm talking about when I was 18.) I had my own life. I stopped being my mother's child to be myself. When I got married I also became my husband's wife. When I had children I became their mom.

I will always be my mom and dad's child, but I've grown up and have my own life now. I faced a dilemma the last time my mom came to visit me. I reverted to being my mom's daughter (the past) because I didn't have the courage to be myself (the present). After my mom left, my family felt confused because I didn't act like me. When they told me how they felt I faced a crossroad: Would I revert to the past? (and confuse my family) or be the current me? (and let the past be in the past). I chose the second one - to be the current me, a grown woman, a wife, and a mother.

Same with childhood friends. As a young girl, I had a best friend. She will be my friend forever, but after we grew up we got different lives. What we had was special, and I'll always remember it, but my current life is special, too. It's fun to rehash old times with her, but honestly old times are just that - old times, memories, not today.

It's not my job to make people see me as I currently am. They are responsible for themselves. All I can do is be who I am today and live my life in the present moment. 

Then and Now

I’m transcribing a document for Per and the process has taken weeks because of slowness and fatigue. I used to type really fast; so fast, in fact, that I thought in words instead of letters. One of the things I experience because of MS is that my right hand is slow and inaccurate. To use an analogy, I used to be a rabbit and now I’m a turtle.

Slowness isn’t the only thing I experience – I get tired too. Once I did many things, but now I do one thing before feeling extremely tired.  I work on the document then stop after a short time because of fatigue. For the rest of the day I sit in my living room chair because I feel too tired to do anything more.

After getting sick I lamented about my lost abilities. One day I realized that lamenting just made me feel bad and caused me to live in the past. (In my heart I want to be a fast typist like before, and wish I could do many things, but I can't and that's realistic.) Accepting what I can do now causes me to live in the present moment (even though I remember what I once could do.)

Now to be philosophical: We can do many things at a young age, but when we get older we wish we could do the things we once could. (I think excessively wishing this causes mid-life crises.) We’d be better off to accept the current reality and let the past remain in the past. When we accept the current reality, we don't give in or giving up or say “Why try?" but “I'll do my best with what I can do right now.”

I want to remember the positive and hopeful feelings I have when I think of what I can do and not what I can’t.