The Joy of Right Now: The Gift We Forget While Remembering the Past

My journals from the past seven years are stacked in front of me. I pick one from 2019 and flip through its pages, cringing at my terrible handwriting. Were my biggest concerns back then really just completing my math lesson and practicing my ballet and tap dances? Was I really that young, innocent girl who was free to daydream the entire day, wondering how she would meet her prince charming? I wonder if I should tell her. Let her know that soon she’ll have bigger problems than arithmetic, and romance isn’t what she thought it would be. Within just a couple of years, she’ll have trouble recognizing her past self. Her handwriting will improve, but soon she’ll stop referring to her older sister by the childhood nickname she gave her. She’ll complete school with high grades, but she won’t know who she should become. And even as I’m writing this, I know that in a couple of years, I will look back and have difficulty recognizing the person I am now. I’ll cringe at my writing but wish I had appreciated this moment more, because maybe this is the gift. The present. We get to live today and not just yesterday.