La vida es ahora

A dear friend said this to me over the weekend. La vida es ahora. Life is now. 

I had one of those wonderful afternoons where you are talking with people who just get you, who accept you, who've been through it with you, and everyone loses all track of time. We talked for seven hours straight about all kinds of different things. At one point, I was expressing misgivings about a life change I've been considering, listing various things that could change in the future which would make this change impractical.

My one friend, who is fluent in Spanish, finally said, "You keep talking about 'if this' and 'what about that?' but la vida es ahora."

We happen to be only a week apart in age, and we've been talking quite a bit lately about this stage of life we're in, which involves considering what we want the rest of our lives to look like. I think a lot of people my age are thinking about this in terms of their children being almost-adults and the accompanying shift in their roles as parents. For me, it's more a realization that if our time on earth is a clock, my little hand is probably hovering somewhere between the 7 and the 8. 

I don't mean this in a reckless way, like it's time to abandon all reason and caution and concern about consequences or the future. In fact, I think I'm more cognizant of those things. But at the same time, I'm aware that putting things off or not doing them because of some endless string of possible future complications is eventually going to mean that I missed out on the chance to actually live my life. And if that's what I'm going to do, what's the point of all this hard work I'm doing to change myself?

This may seem like a weird source for a quote, but the Netflix show Grace and Frankie has a character who is a recovering addict, and once he's gotten some time together, he talks about "waking up to [his] life." I completely understand what he's talking about. I've experienced that with bouts of depression. When I would be in a particularly bad episode, all kinds of things around me would slide, often resulting in my living space falling into disarray. But while I was struggling I wouldn't even notice the trash or dishes or laundry (or maybe even all 3) piling up around me. Then one day the fog would finally lift and I'd look around and really see the mess and not be able to believe I'd been living that way. 

The same thing is happening now, as all kinds of stuff that I used to bury is rising to the surface now that I'm not pushing it down with food. But that's a good thing, even when it doesn't feel like it.

So I'm going to have adventures and do things I enjoy and find ways to spend more time with the people I love. Because life is now.