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“Most people live in the past, or trying to peek into the future,” she said as I crouched in my chair, arms wrapped tightly around my middle, shielding myself from her truth, embarrassed of my need for it. “It is an art, to live in the present, to let the past and the future be and bring all of yourself into the moment of now.”

She’s not the first to say it to me. I may have even heard it whispered on a breeze in answer to prayer.  But for some reason, when she says it, I hear it for the first time and I unclench a little. I breathe in the moment – the moment of her saying that to me and me taking it in.

I define myself as strong and capable, able to rise to any occasion. I forget strength only comes on the heels of vulnerability. I realize, suddenly, and with force, that my moment calls for vulnerability.

The moment I’m in has little hands that grip the back of my pant legs while I rush around, feeding, clothing, and loving her. It has other loved little hands attached to a mouth that, in the moment, says, “Nah-night daddy.  Nah-night basketball.” It has eleven-year-old hands, one of which slips into mine for a walk to the mailbox.  It has strong hands that pick me up off the floor, attached to a man that says, “Lie down.  I’ll take over for a while.”

The moment I’m in is effort-full beauty.

But it is also suffocating, excruciating expectations.

Moment-living probably calls for me to set those aside.

I am learning in my moment.

I fight the urge to look for the happiness around the bend, post-adoption, post-diapering, post-haste. It only makes me dissatisfied with my now.

My now has good books to read, safety, a pantry full of food, first-world problems, connection, and love. Why would I look past that? Why would I think the best is yet to come? The best is. It is.