Living In the Moment

 "We must let go of the life that we have planned so as to accept the one waiting for us" - Joseph Campbell

I ask, what happens when the past lacks any clarity (who said, "hindsight is twenty-twenty", again?) and the future has absolutely no clear definable path as it relates to the interaction between two people? Ah-ha, the answer is: There is just the present, no future or past, just the moment at hand and the only place that life truly lives.

Living “in the moment” as it relates to interactions and personal relationships in life, is an interesting approach to attempt—it requires a lot of effort and faith and less practicality and thinking. Learning to just be with what is and allow the stories manifesting in your life to unfold without trying to redirect them is something that is hard to do and takes reinforcement and practice. You have to learn to go against the urge to slap a label on a particular interaction and place it on a shelf with all the other “like” things, situations and people that you have encountered or collected along the way. 

Take for instance, the story of an interaction with a man that has been weaving itself over and under, in a contradicting fashion, throughout the last year of my life. I, for one, would have written this story in a predictable way; with a clearly defined path and a predetermined outcome but that isn’t how living in the moment works (Dang it!)—you don’t get to write the story and you certainly don’t get to assign strict roles. In fact, I have learned that attempting to redirect or script the natural flow of our lives and relationships not only seems to backfire, but is a guaranteed recipe for misery. Though, in order for me to fully comprehend this, I had to try it and repeatedly fail.  

He is a hippie-Christian raised by evangelical missionaries, I am a Buddha-natured “spiritual-but-not-religious” pursuer of love and champion of compassion that refuses to corner my faith or call it by something other than a feeling that can’t be named or spoken. Yes, it seems we were in disagreement from the beginning but that didn’t seem to deter either of us from a collision course with the other. After all, we are both in agreement that love is the center of life and if we are truly acting in that love, we couldn’t deny the fondness that quickly developed between us—even if it didn’t seem to make any sense.

He doesn’t care about how he looks and gathers clothes from whatever least costly source open to him at the time. I am a woman who enjoys looking her best and wearing high-heels. He hates my shoes and although he seemingly accepts me, he can’t quite accept my three-inch heels. Humph, I’m out, but I’m also in—he likes me, he likes me not. You must be thinking, Wait, that doesn’t make any sense….and you’re right, it doesn’t unless you live in the moment and stop picturing some imagined future full of strife and arguments over shoes and mismatch clothes. 

He loves his modest home, his craft, and his own personal world full of words and art that he created using his own two hands. He also dearly values his isolation and his personal little creative world gives him all the love he really needs. I love my little apartment near center-city with easy access to health and book stores, parks and coffee shops. I, like him, am not overly social but will always deeply yearn for an “other” to hike and cook with—someone to compliment my life in their own unique way.  

Despite our obvious differences, every once in a while we allow ourselves to overlap a little. He reminds me of the calm quietness that lives beyond the city-limits (and cell phones) and I remind him that getting out of the house for a hike every now and then can truly feed the creative soul. These interactions between us seem effortless if you center your mind in the actual moment but it becomes hard if you catch yourself subscribing to the stories that your monkey-mind wants to tell about tomorrow, or next year, or after the break-up or the wedding. (See?) 

During our outings together, we seem to fall easily into the role of a boy and a girl with romantic potential, despite our failed efforts to redirect to friendship-only. For almost a year we struggled with our conflicting desire to be lovers or friends, date or just “hang out”. After growing tired of the back and forth, we said what we meant as a final “Goodbye” on a few occasions but somehow we still grew towards each other in some misunderstood way and the “Goodbye” never stuck. We didn’t know what to do but we knew we needed to do it together. 

We tried going at it as strictly only-friends (with rules) or just casual dating and even for brief period, exclusively dating. We determined that none of these felt completely right when we thought into the future and then it finally dawned on us that predicting the future seemed to be causing the problem. Solution: Live in the moment.

 

We eventually learned to stop trying to not be and allow the mixed-up, non-sense making thing that is us to just be what it is. We stopped trying to picture what could or could-not or would or would-not happen with us. Ironically, we found footing together in the acceptance that there is no ground for us to stand on. We began to embrace and acknowledge the love and companionship that was being offered up without telling it what role to play. 

The subject of strictly defining what we are comes up between us every now and again. Sometimes it seems as if one of us is checking to see if the vow to “live in the moment” still rings true for the other or it may be that, we are trying to make sure that hurt or resentment isn’t sprouting. Either way, we never fully know what to say about ourselves when the conversation turns in this direction, or when a kiss between us comes as natural as a dew drop to a flower, quieting our differences. We just try to leave it open-ended with some variation of, “We’re funny, aren’t we?” or “We just don’t make any sense, do we?” 

Even though our clashing natures (and his self-centered story-telling mind) can drive me to tears or laughter at any given moment, I cannot deny his zany-charm. And although, he doesn’t like my taste in shoes, he certainly doesn’t seem to mind my company either.  

Sometimes we both feel the air of conflict as he reaches out to gather me into an intimate hug but it melts away when our gazes meet and we remember that we are not trying to exist in the future—we just enjoy the hug and allow it to remind us to live in the moment.

* Originally written Sept 2011