Sometimes, maybe writing is the only thing that can bear the joy and pain of the heart. Sometimes, it is the best space to just be present because anything more is too difficult for the heart to fathom or understand in times when the world becomes too much.
It is in the mundane, about-to-get-to-where-we-want-to-go moments that I have found in this trip that held the most weight. I sat on the airplane in between the two most important people in my life as the huge machine engulfing us skidded pass rock and pebble, stumbled with grace--uncertain but determined. I interlocked my fingers with theirs and closed my eyes. And in that brief turbulent yet somewhat therapeutic moment of clarity (mind more easily prey to flashes of the EgyptAir crash), I think in my little head to the vast old heaven above that all of this is enough. It was a small but powerful and strong thought. That if I lay here and it was my final breath (not as morbid as I make it sound), it would be enough. Being here wedged between the two people I love, holding on to each other, it was enough for me. Sure, I had sins, mistakes, I could be broken in a few places, forever never satisfied by man’s wants, needs, desires, and dreams. But that was okay. It was enough. Love was enough.
And looking back, I want to remember that moment and that love. And the fleeting moments we sometimes take for granted because we brace too much for the future, worry too much about the unknown, and the unwritten page. There is only so much in our control and only so much perfection we can idealise and wish with all the fibers in our body that it be the way we want it to be. But at the end of it, how much joy, pain, sadness, anger, and love can our little hearts carry if we are too busy carrying another moment’s love, pain, joy, and sadness? What if the present has just as much to offer us if we just let it.
It is, after all,
the present.
