Usually when I have trouble sleeping it is because I am anxious about something. I don’t have a favorite thing to worry about because I always have something to choose from my endless list of worries. I can be anxious about deadlines to meet or what I need to dothe next day, or what I forgot to do the previous day, orwhat might or could happen, or ruminating in my mindover a list of possible options, the potential consequence of each option, the first best option, and the second best option if the first option does not workto solve the next problem, or did I say something stupid in a meeting or did I hurt someone’s feelings with what I said, or did I make a mistake, or what will others think about me (I admire those who seem not to care about what other people think about them and Ihave tried and tried to be that way but I always fall short) or worry about why I can’t stop worrying about what people think about me. My worries extend to my concern about everyone one I love to chunks of ice breaking away from the polar cap. Recently, I have been struggling with sleep issues for different reasons.
In recent weeks I have been waking up excited about the upcoming day. I will squint my eyes open just enough to see if there are any rays of morning light shining through my bedroom windows. This excitement about the coming day reminds me of some of my childhood days. I remember waking up early onweekends and on days when school was out with excitement and anticipation. Waking up on school days was a different story. I was fortunate to grow up in a neighborhood with lots of children. There was always something to do like playing baseball or football at the corner lot, playing hide-and-seek, chasing the ice cream truck, biking down the streets behind the mosquito fogger, building snow forts, engaging insnowball fights, sledding down snow covered levees, or ice skating on frozen bayous.
I am not sure why excitement has been waking me up lately. Maybe it is because I am more aware that my days are numbered, or I am in a different stage in lifeor that each day is a gift or that each day is different or a combination of the above. Just as there are no two snowflakes alike neither are there two days alike or even two moments alike. Each breath is different. Each day, each moment, each breath is contingent upon what happened previously. Everyone is different. We are the creation of what happened thousands perhaps millions of years ago. We are here because our great–great grandfather met our great–great grandmother, and our grandmother met our grandfather, and our father met our mother. Each breath we take is different from any other breath we have taken or will ever take. Every breath is the product of oxygen that has been breathed in by billions of people and animals and breathed out as carbon dioxide that has been breathed in by thousands of plant species which have breathed out oxygen making each breath, we breathe different and unique.
Yesterday is gone and never to return. Tomorrow is yet to be and for many never to be. The only moment we have is this moment and it is the only moment we really need. Every moment is a bearer of gifts and always offers us something brand new. I am grateful to feel excitement. I am excited about what each day has to offer beginning with this day right now.
