When I am anxious it is because I am living in the future. When I am depressed it is because I am living in the past. ~Author Unknown (but could have been me!)

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.
Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart.
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.
Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so.
One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.
~Mary Jean Iron


While there are three tenses to life, I realize more and more that I spend most of my time living in just two of them - the past and the future - but not nearly enough time in the present. I'm not even sure how it started yet I seem to have spent most of my 43 years living that way - meandering with a head full of questions between the ghosts of coulda, woulda, shoulda and nostalgic revisiting of the past or else trying to weigh up all the unknowns, uncertainties and yet-to-come moments that sometimes quite literally paralyze me about the future.
It's not that I harbour an overwhelming sense of regret about the past, not entirely anyway. Nor is it that I plan with excitement, or dread, towards the future and where my life will go from here. In one sense I don't so much 'live' in the present as, dare I say it, stagnate and procrastinate - glued to the spot wondering about the paths I might have taken coupled with a reticent intrigue and underlying anxiety about the future. But surely it's a crime to live my life as if the present is a no-man's land.

Either way, I've determined it's not the best use of my time and, if anything, is considerably detrimental to my present. There are times I get sucked into the vacuum of my own head - devoured by questions, wonderings and doubt or reminiscing with fondness, melancholy or a sizeable mix of both. Always wondering if what I'm doing - or have done - with my life is good enough. (Good enough for who?)

It's not that my reflections upon the past are always negative, far from it. I have done many wonderful things and accomplished much in my life thus far of which I am proud, grateful and definitely more the wiser. And I am fully aware of the immense and unique gift that I get to live this life and not that of so many millions of people in a much, much worse situation - facing poverty, sickness, devastating hardships and unimaginable horrors as a matter of daily life. Although I sometimes fear the 'what if' of that becoming my future.

And I certainly don't always look to the future with underlying apprehension, because I know from previous experience that, even when the present has sometimes felt like too much to bear, the future has nevertheless brought better, happier and remarkably fulfilling moments into my life. Moments that I sometimes feared I wouldn't see.

So why then do I waver constantly between one and the other but so rarely within the here and now? Or if I let myself soak up a lovely moment in the present, a little voice of negativity will often sneak in with its subliminal whispers of 'what if this all gets taken away'? I can be laughing and enjoying a walk, a holiday, a movie, a meal or a beer with Lorne, and suddenly it's like I catch myself with a shadowy foreboding of 'what will I ever do if something happens to him?' Borne of the fear that maybe I'm not worthy or entitled to such happiness? Or the guilt of, 'how can I be laughing and feeling this good while half the world's suffering or in turmoil?'

When I really get into it, I can even find myself thinking, 'in the future I might really regret having lived my life this way in the past'. For heaven's sake, why won't I just let myself off the hook? The past - for better or worse - is what has shaped me into the person I am today and has brought many wonderful people, experiences, challenges and accomplishments into my life. No I didn't move to France (yet) like I always thought I would - like everyone thought I would. But I did take a completely different path that has brought me to enjoying the past 10 years with a wonderful man, living in a great city and a great country - and with my sister and her family nearby. I've had some amazing jobs (and some complete doozies - same could go for relationships too come to that) and in all honesty I wouldn't change that either. Maybe it's normal to look back over your life and wonder about the paths you didn't take, or wonder about the lives of people you once knew and how different things could have been. But there's really no telling if you would have actually been any happier, more successful, wiser, wealthier or otherwise.

However I don't think it's all that healthy to feel a greater sense of anxiety about the future than I do excitement or positive anticipation. Most of that stems from my worries of the world we live in which is directly proportional to the amount of news or twisted american crime shows I watch - hence I try to avoid them, even if a lack of political and socio-economic knowledge significantly inhibits my worldly awareness and limits more in-depth dinner conversations and debates.

And while I still have a problem accepting that I'm in my forties - seriously, I don't know why it is after 3 years already, but it still chokes me - I should really just a) be grateful that I got this far :-)  and b) suck it up because, in my 50's or even 80's I'll no doubt be kicking myself that I wasted the full enjoyment of my forties feeling old!

Basically, since I'm unable to change the past, although I do frequently learn from it, and I'm somewhat limited in what I can really control about the future, except what is within my powers to effect, I should consider it 'open to possibilities' - a blank page whereupon any number of things remain to be written - and focus perhaps on making those possibilities into realities.

One thing's for certain, if I don't do more and live my life more in the present, then my future will almost certainly be tainted by melancholy and regret about the past.