Grieving In The Moment - Living In The Past

"Living in the moment". I hear that so often these days. Practicing Mindfulness, learning to be present, to let go of the past and not to worry about the future is supposedly the key to a more content and fulfilled existence.

There are some truths to that in my opinion, but as far as my journey goes the present has become a mind numbing series of actions I must perform. So I do what needs to be done, but the joy, the life, the purpose of it all seems lost and I feel like a robot on auto pilot.

As for the future, all the dreams, the reasons to save money, to achieve goals, to push through in hope of better days... all of those things and more have been swallowed up by a black hole and the future feels like a bleak, scary and unpredictable maze, an unforgiving force dragging me against my will to a vast desert of emptiness and doubts.

So it seems that all I have is the past. The memories of the life that is no more but in which I am stuck in. The life I so often felt should be better, the days when I foolishly yearned for something more as if what I had wasn't enough or if I was missing something. 

Now I miss the life that was full of promises, the pillow fights, the Saturday morning brunches, the sunny afternoons washing the car, and hanging the laundry together. Binging on Netflix on the rainy days. 

I miss going to the supermarket and arguing about how many eggs we actually needed for the week. 

I miss cooking so much meat, and bossing him to eat the pumpkin soup, or to use less butter on his bread. 

I miss the life that brought us to our knees, praying for our marriage, interceding for our children and for the people God brought to our minds and hearts. 

I relive this past everyday. The stupid fights we had about things that seemed so important back then but that I cannot recall now. The tears and the hugs when we made up and promised to change, to do better, to be better.

The memories of mornings when we cuddle up in bed and pretended to be snoring as the kids came into our room. Of evenings when I folded his side of the blanket so that he could slip into bed easily if I was already asleep. Or the evenings when I was mad at him and I didn't fold up his side of the blanket to make sure he knew he pissed me off.

Now I fold his side of the blanket every night... but he will never again slip into bed trying in vain not to wake me up. 

I fold his side of the blanket anyway. Every night.

Because I don't know how to practise this mindfulness of being present in this painful present, when a confusing and bleak future is too hard to face and when the past - with photos of places we've been with people we love, remembering prayers we prayed, and regrets I still carry in my heart, and blankets now folded in vain - 'our' past is all I got. 

I am mindful that 'our' past is where I live, it's my prison and my haven, it's my sorrow and my saving grace.