MISTAKE ONE: waiting, rather than living in the moment.
I spent much of my life waiting. I met my husband-to-be when I was 14 and he was 17. When he joined the Marines soon after, he took my heart with him. I waited for him to come home on leave. I waited for letters, checked days off the calendar, dated little because my heart was waiting for him to come home. Then we were in different colleges and I waited for breaks from school so we could be together. Then I waited to finish school so we could marry. I cried when we finished the ceremony and my life could finally begin.
Telling myself that I was missing out on a lot of life didn’t make it past the thought running through my head. My heart was set. I avoided complications, getting close to many people, always choosing the path that would get me where I wanted to go the quickest way possible. I wonder how things might have been different if I had made different choices.
Now I live in the moment, wringing every drop of joy I can out of seeing people I love, talking to those I can’t see as much as I would like, taking the time to soak up beautiful things, celebrating the talent surrounding me – LIVING – rather than waiting.
MISTAKE 2: worrying about things over which I have no control.
This is a gut level reaction. I TRY not to do this, realizing how stupid it is. I do pretty well during the day when I can choose my activities, stay busy, etc., but if I wake in the middle of the night, I get swamped pretty easily. I worry about worst case scenarios, causing myself a lot of pain for no good reason. My head tells me to prepare for things the best way I can, see what actually happens, and then deal with it. My inner child wants to live in ignorant bliss, avoiding the bad situations, seeking hugs and someone to solve the problem about which I’m worrying.
I’m doing pretty well on rectifying my first mistake. The 2nd remains a challenge. 99% of the time my “adult” handles things reasonably well, I think. Now I concentrate on the 1% of the time my inner child comes out.
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