This is a poem I wrote a few years ago. Every so often something reminds me of it and I drag it out and look at it again. Yesterday's blog about Thoreau made it come to mind. Hopefully it reminds you our time is finite and life should be savored not just muddled through. Try to find a happy medium between living each day like it is your last and planning for your future, neither is a guarantee. PEACE and God Bless!
Fools’ Luxury
Three minutes before heading home,
Striding purposely,
Laying out the evening at hand,
I passed a quiet man, gray and lined
Silently sweeping piles of dust and off-handed debris
From ancient tiles pooled with afternoon sun.
Wish it was Friday –
I answered his casual query
Why, he said – giving me internal pause –
Why would you wish days of your life away?
Too busy to stop, I flippantly shrugged
And carried on
But his simple wisdom rippled inside
Reverberating against my arrogance of immortality.
Why were these Wednesday hours less precious?
Where was my Thursday guarantee?
In an epiphany flash I wondered
How long I’d been always looking to the next finish line –
Friday June next Christmas –
How long ignoring my life,
Continuously waiting to live it,
Procrastinated dreams growing dimmer,
Days I’d let fall into dilapidation
Instead of carefully constructing each minute.
Time is fools’ luxury.
Those with no more would chide, if they could,
Would remind that Thoreau at his pond had it right.
Too many meet death without knowing life
Failing to embrace its falling seconds.
So this Wednesday I sit
And soak in cut grass and dampened dirt
Shivering in Winter’s dying wind
And try to teach myself
To walk the tightrope
Between looking toward tomorrow
While remembering to see today.
Showing posts with label live. Show all posts
Showing posts with label live. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Day 303: Monday, Monday
Today was Monday and I was tired, but I had a choice what attitude I would have. The past week or two, I have just been counting days, struggling against the world, but have I been living?
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Thoreau
I can't spend 365 days waiting for him to come home. Today, I ran late to get to my orthopedic doctor's appointment, which makes me feel crazy, then sat waiting for a hour just to get into the exam room. The nurse took an x-ray of my knee, then told me if the problem ends up being in my hip, I have to call my general doctor for another referral. Of course after two minutes, he tells me I have fluid on my knee and he needs to see an x-ray of my hip too. Lucky me, I have to have two surgeries. I am already imagining the fun this will be with a baby. I ran to the grocery store because we were dangerously low on everything. When I got home, I was rushing to get stuff done before heading to daycare to pick up the baby. I shattered the coffee pot. So I had to make another trip to the store. Or go without coffee . . . HA, yeah, right!
I had all these things go WRONG and came home smiling. I downloaded a Michael Buble song and danced and sang and played with my daughter for an hour, making her giggle over and over. What joy!! I could have spent this afternoon moping and sad and scared and frustrated, but what is it going to solve? Nothing. I am still going to have to figure out what to do with the baby on crutches and have six-twelve weeks of recovery time. I would have wasted some precious hours with Lil Bit if I let my attitude get down.
Another friend of mine has been struggling with what to do during her husband's first deployment. She was great as a wife, but has been some one's daughter, girlfriend, fiance, wife, not yet a woman. She doesn't know who she is. She has been trying to fill her time with stuff, jogging, dining out, maybe a part time job, but deep down, she knows she needs to fill that void with HER. Whatever she needs to do to figure out how to live deliberately.
None of us want to realize when we come to die that we have not lived. But sometimes it is hard to find a way to live deliberately. Be in the moment. Worry about now the most. Keep the future in perspective. You have to think about it, you have to plan for it, but you don't have to worry quite so much. Find one thing to smile about and hold onto it as long as you can. Crying will happen, it is part of life and living it, just don't let it be what fills your time until tomorrow. Live deliberately friends, otherwise, you're just not living.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Thoreau
I can't spend 365 days waiting for him to come home. Today, I ran late to get to my orthopedic doctor's appointment, which makes me feel crazy, then sat waiting for a hour just to get into the exam room. The nurse took an x-ray of my knee, then told me if the problem ends up being in my hip, I have to call my general doctor for another referral. Of course after two minutes, he tells me I have fluid on my knee and he needs to see an x-ray of my hip too. Lucky me, I have to have two surgeries. I am already imagining the fun this will be with a baby. I ran to the grocery store because we were dangerously low on everything. When I got home, I was rushing to get stuff done before heading to daycare to pick up the baby. I shattered the coffee pot. So I had to make another trip to the store. Or go without coffee . . . HA, yeah, right!
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| Froggy Bottom Baby |
Another friend of mine has been struggling with what to do during her husband's first deployment. She was great as a wife, but has been some one's daughter, girlfriend, fiance, wife, not yet a woman. She doesn't know who she is. She has been trying to fill her time with stuff, jogging, dining out, maybe a part time job, but deep down, she knows she needs to fill that void with HER. Whatever she needs to do to figure out how to live deliberately.
None of us want to realize when we come to die that we have not lived. But sometimes it is hard to find a way to live deliberately. Be in the moment. Worry about now the most. Keep the future in perspective. You have to think about it, you have to plan for it, but you don't have to worry quite so much. Find one thing to smile about and hold onto it as long as you can. Crying will happen, it is part of life and living it, just don't let it be what fills your time until tomorrow. Live deliberately friends, otherwise, you're just not living.
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