This very moment

I've gone through the last few weeks, actually the last month or so, thinking soon it will be fall. Soon things will be back to normal. Soon I'll be back in a routine. Soon I'll feel better. Soon I'll have more time. Soon. Soon. Soon.

The thing though? Soon is now.

I've had to spend some time recently coming to grips with the fact that this is life. There is no, oh I'll wait for this job or that event. I'll figure it out when I reach this milestone. Nope. That's not how it works. How it works is this is today. There are things that need to be done today. There are things that should be done today. There are things that could be done today. Likely, a small percentage of that will happen. I'll check Twitter too many times and I'll realize that I've been lying in bed for an extra hour instead of the extra ten minutes I promised myself.

It's been a long year, I keep telling myself that. I keep thinking about all that has happened in my life, how each day seems so short and so mundane but in reality, things add up, things are complicated. Life is messy. And some days all we can do is make it to the end and pray to God we get a few hours in front of the television lying on the couch, zoned out.

Last week I had a panic attack. I hadn't had one in quite some time. Well, maybe I had one in Michigan when I thought about boarding a plane and coming back to LA but I'm not sure. But last week it really happened. I was home alone in the morning. I had my ear buds in, I was rocking out to my favorite screenwriting podcast, and I was cleaning the house. I was cooking. I was doing a million things at once which is how a lot of my weekdays are spent. Don't be fooled. A script never gets written here straight through on Abbey Place. There will be plenty of distractions and events that hold it up.

But this day I was going full out. I was feeling good and I went into the bathroom where I keep my blood thinners and I noted that my little seven-day pill box was empty. I filled it up. I went to the kitchen. I did ten other things. Then I realized I couldn't remember if I'd taken one of my pills. Okay. No big deal, right? Except? It's kind of a big deal. My hematologist explicitly told me at my first visit never to stop taking my medicine unless a doctor told me to. Not to miss a day. And here I was, not sure if I had or hadn't taken it.

Sure, I could take a second (maybe first?) pill. But upon finding the pill manufacturer's website I learned that's a really bad idea. Like if you take two doses you need to go to the hospital bad. So I couldn't do that.

So instead? I sat on the bed and I cried. I cried big ugly sobs. And then I talked to Angela and my Dad (who takes the same medication and who apparently forgets to take his all the time and is still alive) and I wiped my eyes and I followed my Dad's advice: Forget about it.

See, there are only so many things we can worry about. There are only so many things we can do. Some days we'll feel like a million bucks. We'll look great, our hair will lay just so, we'll get our 10,000 steps in and our Fitbit will produce that computer smiley face we all crave. And then some days? We'll barely make it to the end. We'll feel like failures because we spent all day "writing" and we have a half of a legal pad page to show for it. Or we'll forget to get the chicken out for dinner and it's still frozen at seven o'clock. Or we'll get so angry we honestly never think we'll feel happy again. This, all of it, is life. I've been reminding myself of that weekly, daily, hourly. This is what we didn't sign up for but got anyway.

And those people who appear to have it better than us? I seriously question that. We all have shit we have to deal with. We all have to make it to tomorrow, next week, the end of the semester, or just through the next meal. We all have to make ourselves workout and eat better and read the news and not cry too much because there's nothing we can do about those kids coming out of Syria. We all have to try each and every day to be happy. To be healthy. To be love. No, not loved. To be love. To be light.

I want that for my life. I want to share my spirit, my voice, my heart, my love. I want to make it through the day and not be glad it's over but be glad it happened. I want that. So much.

And so today, and tomorrow, and the next day, I'll work on it. And it'll happen. Soon enough. Because soon is now. This very moment.