Here! Remember that from school? The teacher would call the roll and you'd wait anxiously for your name to say..here or present. It was your way of letting the teacher and the class know that you were present and accounted for. I am here! Count me!
And then you begin to live life and there's no roll call..there's no attendance monitor..there's noone to say are you here and ARE YOU PRESENT? You are here..in the stuff of life but are you present? Are you living in the present?
See when the teacher said your name he/she wasn't asking if you were present in the past or in the future....they were asking if you were present...IN THE NOW.
So are you present in the now? Are you in attendance today or did you show up sometime in the past or in the future? The present is right here and in our faces but it's one of the most difficult places to be in. To be in the present means to allow the past to be..just that..the past. And it means to allow the future to be what it will be....an act yet to occur.
But in the present we are alive..we are in motion..we are deciding and living and breathing and being right in the moment.
Let's practice the art of living in the present. Living in the moment that we are in. Understanding that our past affects us and knowing that what we do today could influence tomorrow but in the moment we are....We are just that..in the moment.
In the moment we have all the power. To shape right now and give birth to tomorrow. But enjoy right now..where you are..who you are...for tomorrow and the next day and the past days were all moments....

I've been thinking. There are times that I want to speak to a certain friend of mine and I can't. I call her..often..and she may not return my calls. I may text her and she doesn't respond. She has a lot going on in her life and I understand this. But when I think about it this has been our pattern for many years. She is always just a bit out of reach. And she's the one I tend to share my most deepest hurts and fears and needs with. She's the one I tend to get very naked with. But she's hard to reach. And when this happens it hurts my feelings. I thought about it today...because I felt I needed her.. but then I realized something.

I have people in my life who I can get naked with.

I have friends who I can cry to..cry with..share the parts of me that are so raw and ugly but they'll still love me. But because she's always been the one that I turned to FIRST I felt she's the only one or the main one that I can go to. But that's not true. I have such a loving and warm circle of friends who I can turn to when I feel.....

And isn't it the same thing in our relationships? We want that person SO badly who we think is the only person who will fulfill our desires/needs. And that person is pseudo available or that person doesn't or can't provide for us in the way that we need it or want it. And despite the fact that there may be someone else who can and will we stay STUCK waiting for THAT person to give us something they never will.

I'm going to start letting go and I mean really letting go of my expectations with my friend. I will always love her. She will always be very close to my heart but I have to see the reality of the situation and that is that I will continue to be disappointed by her.

I have all that I need and want and I need to open my eyes to that reality.

My love and I often speak about being totally honest and truthful with one another. We like to discuss the utopia of having a relationship like a friendship where you can be your true self like you are with your friends. And we like to believe that we have that or something close to it. But as I pondered that today it occurred to me that the reason we don't show up totally naked in a relationship as we may do with our friends is because we don't want our mates to see that side of us. You know..the side that's not "your best side." The side that is really insecure, the side that you take to your friends to ask questions that may seem ridiculous and slightly crazy to your mate but to your friends totally reasonable. You don't want your mate to see that side of you that quivers with fear that they'll leave and find someone more...more of whatever it is you're insecure about. You don't want them to see the side that is healing and still damaged from childhood haunts. Now eventually these sides do show up in one form or the other. But we usually go to our friends to filter them first. So if you showed up completely naked in this way to your mate could they handle it? Could they handle seeing you without your "big girl face on." Without your "I have it mostly together" bravado that you try and wear? I try to show up this naked in my relationship but it is hard. It's scary becasue suppose he doesn't like what he sees?