Moments

To continue my theme of "a song is just itself", so also is a moment:

moment
noun
1. a particular point in time; "the moment he arrived the party began"
2. an indefinitely short time; "wait just a moment"; "in a mo"; "it only takes a minute"; "in just a bit"

A moment is like a song, because it isn't meant to last forever, but it lingers long after the final chords fade.

Moments become memories. We become attached to these memories and want more, more MORE so we seek more moments through which we can attain more memories. We get greedy about our moments.

Oh but Haylee, what about being in the moment itself?? When THIS MOMENT is HERE AND NOW?? The here and now is where we all should be, all the time. If we did that, we wouldn't have need for the word "moment" at all.

When's the last time you recognized "a moment" in THAT moment? "By the time I recognize this moment, this moment will be gone." I'm so caught up in it it's nearly impossible to be objective and view myself in a detached way. But if I did that, the spell would be broken. But ohhhh to breathe in and out and just reflect on the nowness of the time and space in which you stand is pure bliss sometimes. To honestly say, "there's no place else I'd rather be" is bliss.

But then it's Over. Done. "A moment is all you can ever expect of perfection." -Fight Club

Case in point: When the Gators score a big touchdown and the crowd jumps up and cheers in unison! You can't get that back, it'll never be exactly the same again. Different receiver, different part of the end zone, different crowd, different opponent, different weather, different game, etc.

Or, closer to my heart, a romantic one. Sigh! (After years of denial I've come to the conclusion that I'm just this side of being a hopeless romantic) I had a very nice moment with a boy recently and I can tell you, it's very tempting to be greedy about obtaining another moment with him, to attempt to force it to linger on, to stretch the moment... to make it something it was never meant to be! My time with this young man was surprisingly pleasant. And I address him as such because I actually respect him. I didn't expect to respect him (he's good-looking - I always assume the cute ones are slutbags), but he earned it. But it wasn't necessarily romantic, it was just me and him, surrounded by other people, but it was special, because that sort of pure, unassuming connection is very rare. BUT, for me to project some huge expectation because of this pleasant moment would be unfair to both of us. I HATE being disappointed, so why set myself up for it by expecting something out of a moment, which, by definition, is never going to happen again - it was perfect...in that moment. And of course, in moments following this one, I said or did something weird/stupid to defeat myself for having another one with him anyway, so I'm just gonna be happy for the one moment I got and treat it like what it is: a solitary occurrence that will with 98% certainty will never ever happen again, ever, everrrr. The longer I live, the more I realize how good I am at being single. When it seems like everyone else is in a rush to "fall in love" and lose themselves in somebody else, I'm pretty much content by myself with my couch, a guitar, and a baseball game. Haha, that is if your idea of being "good at being single" is having negative game with the fellas - NO ONE can wreck a promising opportunity or conversation like me. I'm the most self-cockblocking person on the planet. But hey! Maybe that's just to make sure no one bothers me when I'm at home on my couch playing my guitar while watching a baseball game! Because that is my idea of Bliss.

C.S. Lewis said (in Mere Christianity), "We must get over wanting to be needed: in some goodish people, specially women, that is the hardest of all temptations to resist." I need to get over that, because I want that - I want someone to wake up and think about me, to need to see me, to need to hold my hand, to need me in all the ways I need them. I've never, ever, everrrr experienced that before. Ever. So I was riding my bike home last night and tossing this around, as objectively as possible, and I found that I've been trying to fill my void with a relationship, or a song I'm writing, or freaking facebook (which I quit by the way, ugh, it started to weird me out in a Matrix kind of way), and it was just so obvious that I need to be filling my moments with God. Those are eternal moments. He's the only thing that's perfect, he's the only thing that lasts. God needs me to need Him; he created me to need him. And I do.

He gives us these "moments" - glimpses of heaven. Now I love my heavenly, mountain top moments, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't be able to recognize them when I'm up there if I didn't have the valley to compare it to. No one likes valleys, but I just tread through one, which I think will make the view from the peak look even better. Then again, any moment can feel like the summit if we just breathe and reflect and be grateful to have the self-awareness to recognize how special life is.

Because this moment, right now, this moment is your life.