Monday, August 4, 2014

Ups and Downs and IN-BETWEENS








"The boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most."
~ Russell from the movie UP

Dealing with the ordinary passage of time
is a precious virtue that can only
be learned through experience.

You don't know what an hour feels like
until you've agonized in pain for the entirety of one.
You can't feel a mile 
unless you've limped one with blistered heels.
You can't dread or anticipate the feeling of a broken heart
unless it's been bestowed on you before.

And because of that,
you appreciate the next hour or mile or ordinary day 
with no pain for what it is - 
the beauty of life itself.

The boring in-betweens of pain and euphoria.
The plateaus between the peaks.

This is where the true soul of gratitude lives.
In between the guts and the bones of the good and bad,
the happy and the unhappy,
the milestones and the set-backs.

If the pain and the happiness are the rehearsal,
the exercise of what's in the middle is
the true gift of being in the moment.

Practice this in the finite moments of time
that comprise most of your life.
The Tuesdays,
the Julys,
the noons,
the middles.

~ L ~