This isn’t an inherently positive post about living one day at a time, it’s a little different.
There is a beauty in living for today and today only. Tomorrow is never promised but what most don’t realize is that neither is today. A harsh reality and threat that being alive brings. Living for today is something that I had done for some time – my first 20 years of life actually. I had known no different, I was always so sick. I never had the energy or gift to be able to dwell in the past or future. Living in the now also got me through many tough times. Though this was something that all changed very suddenly when I was gifted this new set of lungs. One of the many catastrophic changes that came with getting a life saving double lung transplant. I was suddenly gifted a future or an idea that I would have a future that I never once considered before. I was healthy, alive. Something I had never known to be true.
I know I wasn’t really gifted that much more time, it was a maybe 5 years situation, but to me it felt different, almost like an eternity of extra time. Because I could breathe. So my mindset quickly shifted unknowingly to the time I had with my new lungs and it suddenly seemed like I had a future to look forward to. Which was amazing. Largely not taking into account the fact that I could still leave this earth any second. As could anyone. But not living for today as I had been previously had come with many unsuspecting trials.
For one it has been a hodge podge of really high expectations. I never had expectations of life before this new chance. I never had expectations of time or of health or anything really. It all started when I was aware of the fact that I could potentially get new lungs someday. I could possibly be the healthiest I’ve ever been in my entire life. I am! I would have extra time alive. I do! I have had a ton of extra time. More than I had ever imagined. The expectations went wild though. The feelings were all so new and exciting.
I feel like the biggest mistake I made in my life has been just having all these wild expectations for this new life and my extended time here and my future and all of my potential new experiences. It’s made everything so rigid and sometimes tough to keep up with. Although I’ve done so many incredible things in this new life, like I’ve had the opportunity to do a ton of mind blowing amazing things, it’s not at all what I had expected. Some things yes, but others not at all.
The fact that I had such big expectations going into this new life and have kept them this entire almost 14 years is rough because I haven’t been able to live for today as I had in the past which was an amazing but terminally ill life. It was indeed the mindset of only having one day to live that caused my previous life to be so incredible and loving, deep, vulnerable and caused the experience of just life and only living to be just magical.
With this extra time I’ve been given, that mindset has evaporated into a false sense of time where I am allowing myself to wallow in the past and the future and not be fully present in the now. Which I am now trying so hard to remember. It’s a life I sometimes long for even though while I was in it I was so incredibly ill. But I still was happy. I also had realistic expectations for my time, and it was great. I am still very happy and grateful today but the past and the future are sometimes at the forefront of my mind and I don’t want to live that way. I want to live for today. Assuming I have today and today only. Not waste precious time and energy looking forward and back.
How do I become more present for myself and others so that I can make the most of the time I do have. The experience of today. The experience of now, this one moment the only one we know we have for sure. But the struggle to get back to that has me at a loss because I do want to dream of a future here, and have those high expectations, and dreams of the amazing opportunities that I could have now with my time left, but also I realize it’s definitely taking away from the present.
As I know this is the usual human experience, essentially dreaming for a better or different tomorrow. And sometimes ruminating on past events. It’s just something I have not had much experiencing with except since my second chance. It feels different than my first life. Less high stakes. Less like I’m giving it my all, all the time. Instead of living each day as my last I’m more inclined to save things for tomorrow, or the next day. It doesn’t feel good. I want to live my truth and my love and my passion for life daily and in each moment like I had been living before. It was so real and free and each day was so new a beautiful and full without all the expectations and regret.
The world is sometimes incredible in the now, but the past and the future may not be so pleasant sometimes. I don’t want those gone and make believe times to get in the way of my incredible now. I can’t live for a then or a when, it has to be just now. I want to be real and vulnerable with this life, not settle for dwelling on yesterday and other make believe moments such as my potential but make believe tomorrow. I do know you can learn from yesterday and sometimes need to prepare for tomorrow. But I just can’t keep getting stuck there. One is gone and the other not promised.
The glaring difference has become so obvious to me lately. After nearly 14 years of experiencing this new life with the ability to breathe. To live. Now I see where I’ve gone astray in living my best life now. Theres only one way for me to truly experience life, to live for today. But that is a constant struggle and balance that life doesn’t provide easily. All I can do now is try to discover how to find that balance, the process that works for me now, in the present moment, so that I don’t stray away from today as much and I can truly live and love without all of the distractions and self produced anxiety of leaving the current moment. The only moment me know we have for sure.