Did the title grab your attention?
Today really is a special day, as was yesterday, as will be tomorrow.
Oh, no - yadda yadda affirmation crap
No, not really. More along the lines of seize the day pragmatic this is how Ellen makes her life work thoughts.
You see, when I was younger I was always waiting for IT to happen. The big moment, the day of all days, the event that would make sense of all that had been happening up to that point. Then I would get depressed, though I did not see it as depression. As a result, I totally missed the point of life for a long long time.
( This is the seize the day part. )
We have opportunities and joys and sorrows all the time. I mean ALL the time. We are sentient sensory beings. Sentient in that we are thinking, reasoning communicative beings. Sensory in that we conduct our lives based on the input received through our senses. You remember those. Hearing, touch, taste, sight, smell. There is a constant flood of raw data streaming into our brains through our central nervous system from our environment. Our brain processes the data, and sorts it into blocks of information we can process instantaneously, drawing in no small part from a database that has been being amassed in our memories since before we were born.
As we age parts of the collection process may not work as well as they once did, at times people may totally lack one or more of our senses. Our brains and bodies adapt and compensate.
Today is special because I am able to combine everything I have learned and experienced up to this point in my life and experience the events of the day based on that vast database.
Example: Yesterday I received the wrong items on a sandwich at a restaurant. If I return to the same restaurant today I will be more precise in my order. Were the sandwich especially repugnant to me, I may opt to go to a different restaurant.
Every day will present situations that necessitate the same process of evaluation and adaptation. Many of them are so ingrained in our overall experience that they pass unacknowledged.
I began writing this post almost two months ago. We are now in the first week of October, one of my favorite times of the year. The temperature here at Little Beaver Creek has already been in the forties some mornings, and there is a dappled effect to the bright sun as it streams through the tree branches. A time of anticipation, expectation. And yet there is a melancholic element as well.
There is an air of uneasy anticipation wafting about, unease about the impending election, unease about jobs and the economy, trepidation about the future. The energy created can be one that energizes, or one that paralyzes.
I suppose that is the thing, is it not? How we utilize what was and what is to mold what will be next. Because life works like that, in a stream of activity. We want to manipulate the flow and speed, but we really can only take the ride as it comes to us. We can't slow down the sweet, speed past the unpleasant, rewind and have a "do-over" on the really stupid things we invariably do.
I am taking a long hard look at the state of Ellen's life, and there are changes that need to be made. Today is special because I can start those changes now.
That is a very good thing. One heartbeat, one breath, one step, one decision at a time. That is how life is lived. Not in the regrets or glories of the past, not in the dreams and dreads of the future. But in the here and now. Today.
A special day.
