Another Tuesday, another dollar. It’s Table Topic Tuesday time!
Table Topic Tuesday is supposed to be easy fun. A game, you know? And I’ve been a purist, picking the next question right off the top. I really wanted to slide this guy back into the middle. It’s just a little heavy for my Tuesday morning taste. But it’s been pulled and posed, so now it’s time to answer. P.S. If I pull another groaner next week, it’s mulligan time.
My answer depends on what I’m doing. When I goof—and I goof daily—I replay that oops again and again. Memories of the worst bits of my past are the most physical. Whether it was 6 years or 6 minutes ago, I can still feel the hot flush and nervous tingle of a mistake.
I go to the future a lot, too. When there’s a screen full of red alerts in Blue (our job management system at work). When I’m wondering what the heck we’re having for dinner. When I’m worrying over what I’ll do one day when Tucker pretends he doesn’t see my outstretched hand reaching to guide him across the parking lot.
I’m sure I’ve wasted half of my “present” toggling between the past and the future.
But when you catch the present? When it’s not a wisp breezing by, but it’s a moment that you squeeze and smell and taste? When Case barrels towards you, arms open, full speed, insisting on a family “Group hug!” When Tucker lisps a story through his toothless smile. When you’re so present and full that you stop to whisper “thanks.”
When you’re protecting.
Roaring.
Singing.
Reading.
When you’re catching someone else in the present.
I want to live there all the time.
Lynda was brave enough to play this week! She says:
This question is an easy one for me. I live in the future. The funny thing is that I’ve recently come to that realization and had a conscious thought about it. I’m at an age where many of my friends are either recently married or have been married and are now having kids or having their second kids. I look at them and I can’t help but look towards my future. What will it hold? What will my husband be like? How many kids will I have? All of these are things I want, and I don’t know that I’ve ever allowed myself to admit that they are things I want. I’ve always been content with living my life, making something of myself, developing a career. But lately I’ve found myself thinking, “…when I have a husband, we can do this or that. Or wouldn’t that be a fun trip to take with my significant other…” A lot of times it revolves around travel. Sometimes just with ideas of how to spend my evenings or weekends. And I know sometimes I let it hold me back from enjoying things in the here and now because I file it away or put it off. Of course, I don’t sit at home every evening pining over this future life, but I do think of it and dream of the day when I have someone to share it with. Perhaps you could say that these days it’s an awareness that I’m ready. I want it. And I want it now. But alas, patience has never been one of my virtues.
Lindsay, too! Her answer made me rethink mine.
Who else is taking me up on this week’s question? Go!
my ft.notes 