In a Minute

Tuesday morning, I was on a call with a friend while I drove into work. We were kind of bitching about being stuck. How nothing is turning out like it's suppose to. We've been patient, pro-active, we've worked hard...and still, we sit waiting for something to happen. And we've both said, "If just one aspect of life showed some sort of progress, I'd be so happy."

You know how it goes. You've been working at Goal X (or X,Y and Z, in my case) diligently, and it's taking years, futhermucking years, for anything to happen. Patience wanes and frustration sets in. You feel a bit chapped, then try to rustle up some optimism so you can keep going. Because, above all things, you are stubborn. (I think it's pretty clear that "you" = me here.)

Then, people tell you to visualize how you want your life to be. See it as you want it to happen. Write it out or put it up as a collage on a cork board. Believe it and watch it manifest. Blah blah blah. The trouble with that is you can get attached to how it is supposed to happen. What it is supposed to look like. And, if it doesn't come as expected, it's rather easy to turn your nose up and go, "No. That's not what I ordered. Please take it back. I'll wait for it to come out right."

That's some of the dumbest shizzle you can do, and I'm so effing guilty of it. Working on it, though. Getting better. Because the lessons being served up to me lately aren't so subtle.

That same morning, once I got into work, I received an email from another friend sharing some difficult news. The life-altering kind. We rallied around her with love and support, as much as we could deliver through cyber space (large bandwidth helps). It just goes to show what we all really know -- life can change in an instant.

We tend to count time in the manner of hours, days, weeks, months, years. But, it is in the minute that our lives shift. With one phone call. One email. One sentence. One word. The difference between a Yes or a No. Yet, we tend to let the minutes blur as we look for something bigger to mark our progress, or lack thereof.

Hold your breath for a minute. That's when you'll note how long those sixty seconds are. They aren't meant to be rushed through. Yet we do. To get to another one that we hope will be better, more. Sometimes, when we look back, we see how special that minute really was. And we sort of ignored it. Now it's gone. We can't get it back. Hopefully, that will help us pay attention to the minute we have right now and be present in it. It may not look the way we want it to. It may bring us news we hoped never to hear. But it is the only minute we have. And, sadly, we don't have an infinite amount of them to play with.

On Tuesday, I learned to love the minute. Honor it. Hold it as precious. There are many to count before we get an email with the good news we are praying for. So, I have to savor the ones in between and allow them to surprise me. I've given up trying to figure it out. I no longer need to know what's going to happen, anticipate the outcome, try to control each step of the progression. I can't. It's futile. And I don't want to miss something wonderful just because I'm looking for something else.