Treasuring the Now, not the could haves or could bes

i go here for scones ~ the cranberry is my favorite

Keeping tabs on things that could have been better in the past or racing to bring what could be to life ~ is so tiring. And most of the time it doesn’t do anything to help me figure out what to do now.

“Yeah I just graduated last August”, I told someone. “Oh so it’s been a while then”, they said.

oh. It feels like yesterday but it’s been about a year since I graduated from college. I thought about this a few weeks ago and it made me feel both grateful and anxious. Grateful and happy because I remember this exact time last year I was feeling free and having one of the best times of my college experience. It was because I was studying abroad in Korea and it was more fun than I even imagined it would be.. Anxious because a year is a long time! Friends are off to their corporate jobs or even moving to a completely different coast and I wondered if I had done enough in the time since I left school. I think so.

Right?

even 15 min across the city, it’s like a whole new place

I hadn’t realized I was simultaneously measuring present me to past me, while planning just how much I could advance future me to a spot far ahead of my current one. This juggling act snuck up on me and came to a point where I needed to take a break, not because I particularly wanted to but my body was telling me otherwise.

In my few weeks of having some proper downtime, I thought about how planning for the future distracted me from everything right in front of me in the now. Small things, even though relatively insignificant, made me feel peaceful inside and removed the need for comparison. I enjoyed the bouquet of wild flowers in my kitchen for lifting my mood when I walk in and I appreciate my yogurt bowl with crunchy almond granola for being both nourishing and tasty.

the fuzzy flowers are called celosias

I know it’s a bubble and not how the world always functions, but it was the time I needed so I could gain a new perspective and focus on what really matters.

There’s no could haves or could bes without the now, and so I’m trying to be present and as appreciative of this moment as any of the others.

Love,

Lauren