On finding a way to hope for tomorrow

It’s a funny thing how, if you’re not paying attention, you can stop at some point along the way and find yourself a little unsure of where you are and exactly how you got here but in the same thought feel right at home. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that Maggie’s not just arriving in our lives and Lisa and I aren’t still virtually newlyweds. But at the same time I can’t imagine another day in my life without either of them in it. But there’s no way I’ve been married for five years, and there is just no way Maggie is three, but here we are.

Just two weeks ago we were getting ready for Christmas and to close on our house in just a few short days. But even that seems so far away now. Christmas came and went, along with New Year’s, both bringing their own good times with friends and family. All went better than we could have hoped with the closing and the apartment and it feels almost as much like home as the house. But sometimes I still wonder how we got here, but in the next thought it’s the way things should be.

It’s a strange set of thoughts and emotions and as is apparent I’m having difficulty putting them all in their place to be dissected, examined, and understood. I guess sometimes I wonder what happened to my life, but at the same time I couldn’t be happier with the life I have. But the thinking about where it’s gone leaves me both depressed and frustrated at times. It feels like I should have done more, been farther along, or have more to show for who I am and where I’ve been and I don’t know if that is just a desire to keep up with the Jones’ (although we’ve never met) or if it is really who and what I want to be. But I guess at the end of the day it leaves me just feeling off focus, which is exactly where I am now. I’ve got a to-do list with things to accomplish that go back years, and that makes it hard sometimes to get through what can get done today. You start thinking about what was or what could have been and all of a sudden you are no longer in the present, but then something brings the present rushing back and you’re left thinking that if you had just taken the time or been focused and/or disciplined enough when you had the time or the resource the first time, you’d be ready or not even dealing with what’s come up now. But you have to live in the present; take what’s there is to do and find what you can do today and do that, and then tomorrow do what you can, and at the end of the day be able to lay down your head knowing that you’ve done what you could and take pride in your accomplishments. But sometimes it’s hard when there are just so many things to do and so many people looking to you to feel like you’ve done anything worthwhile and it takes the wind out of your sails to really even try the next day. You think, “Well, today was a wash and I’ve got to catch up from that before I can even start on today.” And while it’s manageable tomorrow, it doesn’t take long before you feel buried without a way out, that no matter what you do or how much you try there is going to be someone who depends on you, someone you’d never want to let down who gets just that.

I guess at the end of the day there is the person I feel like I am and then there is the person I want to be. And while there are a lot of areas in which I find myself not far off from that person, there are definitely some things that don’t match up. Where I find myself now is trying to reconcile getting done what I can today, and leaving for tomorrow what can only be done tomorrow while at the same time not letting the past overwhelm, but motivate me towards meeting those goals in the future. Realizing that yes, there are a lot of things that could have been or should have been, but I’ve done all I can. There may still be more mistakes than I’d like to admit but no longer will I let the mistakes define my present, but only serve to remind me of how it feels to lose yourself to the past and miss life in the present. I think at the end of the day the thing I just might need most is patience, and when I say patience I think I also mean faith as well. Because when I start to think of where I’m not, I get depressed because of how much farther along I could or should be and again, it takes me out of the present life I have to live and I find myself lost in my own life it seems. But if I can find the faith to, in each day, have the patience to live that day the fullest I can, accomplishing what I can, and not look ahead to where I could or think I should be, as well as not look back to mistakes or missteps I’ll find myself happier with each day at the end of it.

I’m of the mind that if things are worth something to you, they often times have to be worked for and I don’t think that makes them burdens, I think it says they have a value to you. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful life and I want to make the most of every bit of it that I can. Tomorrow will bring with it new challenges as well as old baggage, but all you can worry about is what can be done with that day. And in the days ahead as you strive more for the person you want to be, doing all you can to make the most of each day, less and less baggage from the past will be there to hold you down and you’re able more and more to look and see the blessings both around you and up ahead. Then when you look back instead of finding regret and depression, you’ll find determination and faith now knowing where you’ve come from and what you have pressed through, you’ll know that there is faith for what struggles lie ahead so that each new day not be met with apprehension, but hope.