Happy Today

December 28th, 2015

“The new year is almost here and I can’t wait. I just wish it were here already. Don’t you?”
Uh, NO!
“WHY???”

Because today is the gift I just opened. I want to sit with it, explore it. I want to open my heart and my mind to it. I want to be here, to be grateful and to be aware of every minute of it. 

I have no fear or love of the new year simply because it’s not here yet. I would not step out into a chasm now because there was going to be a bridge there in a few days. I want to savor what is here now. I don’t want to be eating my lunch and discussing what I want for dinner. I want to enjoy every bite of my lunch and to be grateful for the taste, the nutrition and everything that brought it to me.

I don’t want to start thinking about the weekend on Monday. I don’t want to think about Monday on the weekend. I want to tell you I love you so that you will feel my love in this moment and not because you will remember this moment in some future. 

When we hug it could be the last hug for either one of us. I want to be there when we hug. I don’t want any part of my day to be on auto pilot while I go rummaging around in the past making believe it was different. I want to go out and feel today’s sun and not sit inside fantasizing about the possibility of next summer vacation’s sun.

I want today, right now, to be forever. I want to walk slow enough to take it all in. I want to eat slow enough to taste every bite. I want to hear the music and the words. I want to love so slowly that every moment is ecstasy.

Don’t live today as if it were your last. Live today like it was your only day and you had the power to do anything.  

In a few days I will wish you a Happy New Year but right now I want to wish you a happy today. A today that is so deliciously slow that you don’t miss a thing. 

Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life