Crystal Madrilejos

Today is my birthday! I’m not going to apologize about how long it’s been since I wrote. Looking back and seeing that it’s been a couple months since I last posted, made me slightly sad. But at the same time, thinking about how much has happened since then and how perspectives and outlooks can change in such a relatively shorty time, makes me feel much better about the state of things.

We all get so wrapped up in the moment most of the time, which in some ways is good. I think about how being present in the moment at times when I’m feeling really good about life – playing with my kiddos or reading to them, or just talking with them before bed about random things – helps me release negative feelings that seemingly occupy every fiber of my being the rest of the time. So, yes, wrapped up in the moment is good sometimes.

However, I’m also on the other end of the spectrum the majority of the time, wrapped up in a moment that is full of negativity and anxiety; seemingly incapable of releasing my grip on that moment and just moving on. Andrew always says to me, “Just. Let. It. Go.” And it’s so hard!

It’s interesting how the present moments that are happy and light and beautiful are so fleeting. It’s like you try to grasp onto them and keep them close. But they are like mist or a nice scent that passes by and you try to catch it, then poof, it’s gone. It’s not that another great moment can’t follow, but they are slippery little buggers. On the other hand, moments that are not that great, they are like lead, too heavy to carry or toss away if you tried! They are sticky and cling to you like burrs on your clothing in early spring/late winter; that inevitably every time you try to pick one off and flick it away, it just clings to your gloved hands for dear life.

I’ve been working on trying to reverse that. Make the happy moments sticky and the negative ones like smoke.

Looking back and thinking – wow, all those moments between the last time I wrote and this moment right now – they were ALL fleeting. The good and the bad. It gives you some perspective that, no matter what, nothing is permanent. At times, things feel really hard in the moment and you wonder, when the heck is this going to end? I’ve had a lot of those moments in the recent past – but here I am, 35 years old today – and feeling just fine.