Looking Forward

Americans live in the future. We look forward to what comes next, what we will do next, where we will be next. It is important to us to have plans, to be prepared, ready. I try to live in the moment and make a conscious effort to be present in the here and now but admit that more often, I join the rest of you and live in the future.

Lately, even though I love the work I am doing, I find myself looking to retirement, to those days when the alarm will not go off, the emails and phone calls will cease and the days will be mine and I will fill them with whatever strikes me as important at the time. I think about that a lot on my drive to and from work. I particularly think about it when I see a car or truck pulling a camper along the highway.

I see those campers and look forward to the day when my husband and I will take one and let it take us, take us down roads and through towns across the country where we will visit old friends, make new ones and relax and enjoy each day as it comes.

But mostly what I think of when I see those campers, is not where we will go or what we will do, but the preparation, the anticipation of the trip itself is what I look forward to. I picture us packing our clothes, carrying them a few at a time from our room at home into our room in a camper and it is that thought, the picture of that future event that makes me long for the time to pass.

We live in the future and while I do look forward to those days, I grow more conscious every day of how quickly the time is passing and how soon these days will be gone, these days of work, of emails and phone calls and meetings. Of decisions and excitement and work.

I look forward, but hope it takes a long time to get here.