looking through me

There’s a low-grade hum pulsing through me. It’s the murmur of expectation and the suppressing shush shifting my focus from the possible back to the present. Because what may be is not what is.

Yet I strain against the second hand. There is so much simmering—I want to watch the pot. I want to guess when it might boil. I want to plan for all the potential bubbling up. But it’s not time. It might simmer for days or weeks . . . it might not boil at all.

Waiting is hard. Being present to what is—instead of being caught up in what might be—is hard.

The pull of possibility is strong, so I keep tugging my attention from the tension of waiting to the nimbly passing now. Where am I this moment? What lesson can I learn here? What grace is unfolding around me? How can I be useful in this reality, not the one that may or may not be coming?

I want to live well. I want to look back at my day, my year, my life and see that I lived each moment fully. I don’t want to see the present slip by while I wait for the future.

Still, I’m tempted to let my eyes linger on the pot. I’m tempted to compose a melody to resolve the static hum of anxiety.

The water may not boil. But this moment—right here, right now—is mine.