Living in the Present
How many of us have one foot in the present and the other in the future?
When you have a baby with Down syndrome, someone in some capacity is likely to say, “Take one day at a time.”
Easier said than done, was my initial reaction.
It is not easy to focus on this moment, right here, right now and when a billion fears are all hitting you at once. I know, I’ve been there.
When we first had Sheila, I worried that I would not be “enough.” Whatever “enough” represented in that moment.
I was mourning the loss of the perfect baby.
I feared her future would be limited and short in time.
I feared others in the family would not accept her.
I feared for her older sister and any other future children we might have.
Would I have enough time for other children?
Would Forrest accept her?
Would grandparents accept her?
How about aunts, uncles, cousins?
My fears went on and on.
I was mourning the loss of the “typical, perfect, normal… insert your word for it here” baby.
Eventually I had to shut down all those extraneous fears, otherwise I was going to go nuts.
(Okay, I hear you, hecklers😉, nuttier than I am already.)
And just like that I focused on what was right before me. Cuddling AJ and reading her a story. Nursing the baby. Fixing dinner to feed the family.
I stopped projecting out into the future, anticipating the unknown is an exercise in futility. It was hard to sustain in any meaningful way initially.
How many of us have one foot in the present and the other in the future?
Or how about one foot in the past, looking back at all the things we could have done better; the other foot in the future trying to project what we, or our marriage, our children, etc., might be doing down the road?
What I didn’t realize when I first had Sheila, and I was driving myself crazy with the constant worrying about tomorrow, is that Sheila would be my spirit guide.
Sheila lived in the moment; the here and now was her go to. It was how she was programmed.
Little by little I stopped doom scrolling in my brain, paging through all those itty-bitty fragments of information we store in our brains.
My hubby likened it to running a defrag on all those itty bits of information, grouping fragmented pieces of information and storing it away.
Living in the moment is not easy.
We cannot ignore everything, but it’s learning to use what is essential and let the rest go.
I may know we have an appointment later in the day, but right now I’m reading to one little girl and nursing the other little girl. And that is enough to focus on.
Stay present in that moment of wonder.
As the girls grew, there have been so many moments we lived, cataloged and set aside to take out later.
Later has arrived.
Now a picture, a smell, a sound, a dream can bring that moment back to life to be enjoyed once again.
Am I lost in all those memories, so busy reliving them, I’m missing the present? No.
They are important and lovely to glimpse, but there is still living to do in this moment.
Right after Sheila died, the doom scrolling in my brain got active again.
Her death was the single most devastating moment of my life.
But even in that moment, I recognized that I couldn’t stay in that moment forever.
Getting stuck there truly was not an option.
I still have much to live for, and my spirit guide; the person that taught me how to live in the moment, continues to remind me there are still plenty of moments to live.
So, one foot in front of the other. One moment lived in the present. I continue to live right here and right now.
Sometimes happy, sometimes sad. Sometimes stressed to the max, sometimes relaxed.
Trying to valiantly stay here, living in the present.
A human, not an AI text generator, wrote this essay.
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Thank you, Nancy, for sharing this. It takes a lot of fortitude and a lot of practice to live in the present, I believe. But I have also experienced the pain and folly of trying to live in the past or the future. The present is where we find the joy, even when it hurts.
I've never easily found my way walking solely in the present, but I am learning to put one foot in front of the other...soulfully...thanks to reminders from thoughtful people like you.