You often hear the saying we need to “live in the moment”.  I mean, technically I knew what they meant, but I didn’t really understand the whole “carpe diem” benefit (or as I like to say “carpe skiem” – seize the skis!  But I digress.  Already).  It had always been a mystery to me how one could only focus on the present and not consider the future or the past.

To be honest, I’m not really sure, if you are a member of society and not a hermit, when trying to live only in the present.  It’s not really practical to live only in the here and now, though I believe in some kind of Utopian world, that’s what we are supposed to do.  But we need to plan dinner parties, trips, events or mull over things we’ve said that we wish we could take back…forward and backward, we are always on the move both physically and mentally.  But you know what? I learned that there is a sweet spot here in the present.  And it’s a place where there can be real and true joy because we are focused on what we actually have.  Even if it is a bad thing one is going through, being present makes you realize how good you have it right now. It might get worse later, but now…it’s not worse.  It’s better today than tomorrow.  It’s better today than yesterday.  There are a lot of ways of looking at this.

When my husband was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma, there was a flurry of activity that almost felt like it didn’t include us.  Doctors were issuing orders and everything had to be done NOW!  Stat!  We didn’t have a single discussion about what any of this meant, and what to expect long term, or even if there was a long term.  We, of course, were numb in the beginning.  Well, really the entire time, and we just marched along the path being laid before us.  But at some point we became frustrated as we had no idea what his situation meant and what the road ahead might look like.  Were we talking days, months, years? The internet was a fount of confusing and scary data.  What was treatment going to be like? Did I need to get outside help for home care, will we have to install a stair lift?  So many questions, but we just kept going from doctor to doctor saying, okay, whatever you say.  But we finally hit a wall. I decided to just go ahead and ask THE question.

What does this mean?  I asked the oncologist one day when Gary’s oldest daughter was with us.  I don’t think any of us were quite prepared for his blunt “people who receive this diagnosis usually only live 6 to 9 months”.  It was a gut punch, but finally we had something we could work with.  The unknown was more unsettling than the known.  We also knew that there are promising new treatments in this field and Gary was going to be part of a clinical trial that was showing some good results…so maybe it would be more.  But we had something we could get our heads around now.  Now we can set our feet in the soil and turn and fight.

When we returned to the cottage where we were staying during our time at Hopkins, Gary walked in the door and announced “Well, I feel great right now.  So let’s get a fire going in the fireplace and have a cocktail and celebrate that fact!”.  That’s when it really hit me in the emotions.  Yeah, let’s just live in the right now and celebrate the right now.  Let’s not think about the little melanoma lesions you’ve had removed in the past or the three large tumors that just came out during your craniotomy and how awful you’ve been feeling and let’s definitely not think about the road ahead at the moment.  Let’s just be.  Here and now.  In the sweet spot.  Today, life is good.

When I was pregnant with my daughter I had to have an amniosentesis because some test result did not have the desired implications.  In the two weeks it took to get the test results back I became more and more taut with fear of a negative report.  Finally when the call came and my stomach was in knots…and had been for days…and I was told all was clear…everything was fine, I realized that I’d just wasted two weeks of my life screwing up my body with worry, for no reason.  Yes, the result could have come back less than favorable, but again, would it have served any purpose for me to be nervous for those two weeks had that been the case?  Of course not.  So I decided then and there that I would no longer stress when it was a question of anticipating a result.  I’ve been pretty good and true to that…not perfect, but mostly good.  Being in the moment was something that, as we waited on results during Gary’s illness, I had to walk him through, too.  “We’ll deal with the implications when the results come back”, I’d say.  “There’s no need to worry now because maybe the results will be positive, and if they’re not, there’s nothing we can do about it now anyway. We’ll face it when it’s presented to us.”

As nice as it would be to constantly reside in the sweet spot of the present, we are humans and we socialize and socializing means planning.  And going through life means we create memories that are wonderful to look back on.  Yes, I would also argue that looking back has it’s own kind of sweet spot as does looking forward when anticipating things, like weddings or births, but do not underestimate the power of the present.  Open your eyes to it and invite it in and sit in the sweet spot for a while.