Life is not about what was . . .

Thoughts from New Mexico, May 19, 2010

I vacationed near Santa Fe in mid-May.  My first trip to the deep southwest.  Since I quasi-camped, I had much time to think and write.

I believe that along the way of our lives there will be many events.  For none of them will we be fully prepared.  Some we will remember; many more we will forget.  We'll cling most tenaciously to the painful days, because in some way that seems most human, they are the ones that rendered us most awake.

In time and with the passing of years, our minds will have difficulty retreiving the tidbits of our life.  In our remembering, we will find ourselves adding a line here and deleting one there, until it dawns on the aging mind that only the present is real and even that is an interpretation.

The past happened.  It happened to us.  But only in fiction can we travel backwards to change or alter it.  If it was good, it was very good; and if it was bad, it was very bad.  To live in the past is to miss the road ahead.  Life is not about what was.  It's about what is, here and now.  As long as you are present, you have all you need to move forward.