Two Pugs and A Girl

If you could turn back time, would you?

What would you pick?

That job you took that made you miserable?

That date you went on?

The burger you ate?

So many moments in time that make a life.

Were they well lived?

Do you live with a regret at a moment in time you weren’t sure what to do?

If you had altered a moment in time, where would you be today?

Would you have married the right person?

Moved to the destination of your dreams?

Chosen a different career?

Each step, each breath, each moment.

So many possibilities of a different life.

If you could change one, which one would it be?

What would have been the outcome?

Better than you have today? Or worse?

Funny thing about time.

It keeps moving forward.

But for many of us, we keep looking back in time.

A longing to change the destination we are in for some.

A longing to get back to where we were once happy for others.

It’s a cliche when you say the past is the past.

Of course it’s the past. One second ago is the past.

How do we live in the present? This moment? How do we let go of the what if?

We don’t.

We learn to embrace that the moment we are in is built from all the moments, all the choices, we made to this point.

Perhaps the dream job was really a nightmare.

That dream man or woman was impossible to live with.

Who knows?

I think the point is to live in this moment.

Embrace the now and release the past to the past.

But if you are truly feeling that you are out of alignment, then decide what you are willing to do to get realigned.

Leave the job. Leave the relationship. Move to that dream city.

Life is short.

It feels long when you are out of alignment.

But when you are living the life you were meant to live, it will never be long enough.

Stop settling. Stop wasting time.

Because there is never enough time to live the life you were meant to live.

We went to dinner tonight with our very best friends tonight. We were celebrating their 30 years of marriage. And my 54 years of life.

We had a fabulous dinner. Drinks. Dessert.

We looked fabulous.

We laughed.

We toasted.

We enjoyed life.

We enjoyed each other.

It is only after they went home, I realized………..we did not take any pictures.

None.

No before dinner drinks.

No during dinner shots.

No after dinner shots.

We just enjoyed dinner. Enjoyed drinks. Enjoyed each others company.

And it was marvelous.

Living.

Living in the moment.

Not for the likes.

Not that I ever lived for those.

But there is a moment in time where, we live on the edge of time.

That moment between post and like.

And suddenly….the like.

I am a few years older than you.

I think age gives us a certain point of view.

Where do you draw the line?

When do you say, no, no?

I can’t go for that?

When do we say, enough?

Enough.

Who can be loved?

Don’t let them fool you. Or even try to school you.

Could you be loved?

Yes.

And you don’t need to post it.

You can keep it for you,

In your memories.

Keep it to yourself.

Stop posting for the likes.

Start living in that moment.

That moment you want to share for the likes.

Live.

Live for all that moment.

And if no one sees it…..it still happened.

It is your moment in time.

Live it. Love it.

Live like the likes don’t mean it.

Because they don’t.

 I have a picture of my Dad from when he was in the service.

Sitting in sunglasses on a castle wall in Germany.

He looks like a badass.

Dress uniform.

Looking at the camera.

What was he thinking in that shot?

I never asked him.

I wish I had.

In my mind he is thinking…I look like a badass.

The German background is non descript.

The castle merely a backdrop to a twenty-something GI.

A selfie of the 1950’s.

Photos.

A moment in time.

Good times. Bad times. Meh times.

But times in the life of each of us.

My kids get mad when I want to take pictures with them. 

Those pictures mean more than words.

They capture a moment.

A perfect, or maybe not so perfect moment, in a day in the life.

A life of captured moments.

I envy anyone who has lived in the iPhone generation sometimes. Sometimes I don’t.

They can capture hundreds of thousands of moments.

But sometimes I think they miss out on the true moments of life.

Really living in the moment. Not just living for the likes.

So maybe that is what life is.

Liking the life you live. Not waiting for that picture perfect moment. 

So I love that picture of my Dad. Looking like a badass. Perfectly framed. Sunglasses on. 

Living. Really living.

There aren’t endless pictures of him posing in mundane, sycophant poses.

It was real. 

A single photo in time.

Because really, it only takes one photo to capture the perfect moment.

Because endlessly posing, posturing, trying to capture the perfect moment, misses so many truly perfect moments.

So what do I think my Dad was thinking in that shot?

Beer. Girls. Cigarettes. Basketball. 

I don’t know. But what I do know?

He lived an ordinary, but blessed, life.

And no picture could ever capture that.

Because life is meant to be lived, not captured.

Get out there. Grab life. Because life will pass by regardless.

“They say we die twice. Once when the breath leaves our body, and once when the last person we know says our name.”

So those pictures we take, soon enough, mean nothing to the outside observer. 

But the moments you made taking those pictures will mean everything. So just make the moments.

Life will pass, but the way you pass it, will mean everything.