On This Exact Moment

I opened my back door after work tonight and found it lying right in the center of the cement of my back porch; I felt it call to me, in the way nature sometimes does to a heart that beats a little out of tune and wants to gallop more often than not.

It was delicate, but most nearly perfect. The green of its stalk was pure and had promises of summer coming. And its puffy white soul was the puffiest and whitest I'd ever seen; just lying there beckoning to me.

It's a weed, but I think the frailty of it makes me want to cup it under a glass jar and hope it remains just as is.

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My dad's best friend was called home yesterday. And I feel paralyzed by the knowledge that I am now reaching an age in which parents passing isn't abnormal. I looked in the mirror last night and found myself asking aloud, "when did you age to this age where saying goodbye wasn't such a startling reality of your current reality?" At that very moment I was the oldest I'd ever been and it's been hitting me lately just how human my parents are; this man and woman who brought me in to the world and raised me up in it, they are fallible. They need let off the hot seat of that pedestal I anchored them to so long ago.

I am older today - maybe more wise. My need for my parents isn't diminishing, but each of our days is, aren't they?

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There are moments I want to capture. Like that fluffy weed that greeted me earlier today, I want to capture them under a wide mouthed Mason Jar and just spend more time lingering and longingly staring at them.

But they are fleeting - even in their most precious of states. Learn from them, glean joy from their existence, and then let them go.

Is life a perpetual lesson of letting go?

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I crawled down on my hands and knees, right there in my doorway, that had mud imprinted in its grooves from all the rain that's pounded the roof these last days. I crawled down on my hands and knees and tried to gather the perfect angle of the weed resting against my back porch.

It wasn't until later, when I was washing my hands and preparing dinner, that I noticed the mud attached to my elbows. The sudden and distinct urge to harness that moment of beauty required my joints get a little dirt on them.

I brushed it off and let the words of that song I've had on repeat the last three days wash over me.

If you want your people and to be seen, your joints - your organs - are going to have to settle into the being dirty. The very center of your soul is going to have to understand the grit that must be developed when capturing the fleeting moment of whimsy is ingrained in your veins.

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Take the picture. Replay the song. Wear the favorite shirt, even if it doesn't match your pants or whoever it is you are wanting to be that day.

Hug your parents. Tell them you love them, even when you don't get them or like them or you feel like you're wiser and have seen more of this world than them.

Form a tribe. Know who'll have your back when the shit hits the fan. Because it will hit the fan. Know your siblings. And if you don't know them, get to know them. They are the only ones in your story that share the foundation of your history. There's magic in that.

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Here's to wild. To realizing our parents are human and flawed and that it's unfair to place them on the pedestal.

Here's to coming to understand, with each minute we grow older, that fallibility courses through our blood. And all those "I can't even imagine" moments just might, too soon, become moments we're no longer trying to not imagine, but succumbing under the weight of.

Here's to grabbing the camera when a perfect weed, that promises wish granting, is on your back porch waiting for you. To playing the song, that feels more like an anthem, over and over again until your pulse begins to thrive within its beat whether the song plays or not.

Here's to now. To showered or unshowered, jeans too tight and the shirt that hides the gravity of your bodily situation. To saying what needs to be said, what should be said. To sending the text or making the call to say I love you, I miss you, it's stupid we aren't saying bigger things, even if you know you'll likely not get a response.

Here's to staying true to yourself, but always being open for the lesson.

Here's to the bittersweet - to walking away, even if your body says not yet.

Here's to saying cya soon to people you want to keep RIGHTHERE; to having the last dinners, last hugs until next time, to wiping the tears quick -- here's to all those agonizing moments that come with being the variety of species that will inevitably grow and change and move -- and to trusting the binds that tie, the laughter that links, the go on, girl, I'm with you looks silently shared across rooms are deep and strong enough to gather you back together once more.

Here's to trusting the world gives us all sorts of soul mates and bonds like that just don't shatter.

Here's to praying about the big and scary right after the last big and scary came true -- to asking for something you always said you'd never want. Here's to listening to that heart of yours -- because He places the desires there, so trust it. Trust Him to know you better than you know yourself.

Here's to you. Here's to celebrating this very minute with you - we're the oldest we've ever been, you and me.

Let's make it count.