Right Now

This week in a writing group I’m involved with, my friend Jen Maurice wrote about a time that she identified as being “the happiest and, perhaps, the most stable and productive days of my life.” I was greatly intrigued by this assessment. It inspired me to ask myself what part of my life has been that for me? I closed my eyes and asked the question. From inside, I heard the words, Right now.

I was shocked. As I settled into this unexpected answer, I began to see the truth in it. Even with the physical frailties I deal with, even with the disappearance of my energy and the deterioration of my body, even with the way my back now bows and my memory discards names and dates as if they were just extra weight to carry around—not to mention the way my friends are dying and the debacle of the election we just went through…

Even with all of this, what I can see is that right now, as I approach eighty, I have finally become my own friend. I like myself. I now find ways to spend time that truly please me. I no longer insult myself by calling my interests pedestrian or commonplace. I no longer feel that I must be interesting to other people. I decline invitations I don’t want to accept and let go of friends who are not heart connections for me. I don’t expect myself to be perfect. I make mistakes, of course, but I no longer tear at myself for them.

I think this is grace, an unearned gift I was given—definitely by my guru, possibly just for the sake of my longevity. It’s not that I’ve stopped trying to improve myself. I do stretch to expand my consciousness, but this happens in miniscule ways. I attempt to do a bit better with food, with exercise, with meditation, with the entertainments I choose—keeping in mind how I will feel afterward.

I guess the point is that I am no longer trying to become someone else. This may be subtle, but the effect is huge. As I sit here on my couch, watching The Murdock Murder Club on Amazon Prime with Minee, my neighbor’s cat, sitting beside me and quietly cleaning her fur, I am more content than I have ever been in my life. I am more me. This must have been what I wanted all along.