GROWING UP

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, especially about something my mother said to me a couple of months ago, she said: "you know, I think your biggest problem is that you don't want to grow up & that you're terrified of getting old". She can be a wise woman my mother, when she wants to be. It makes me think of that line from "beautiful boy" by John Lennon:

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

Why do I find it so hard to live in the present...in the NOW? I find I've wasted so much precious time waiting for my life to start, it's like my mind is stuck back at the starting line waiting for the gun to go off whilst my body's running aimlessesly all over the track - like a chook with it's head cut off.

I remember reading a magazine article once about Angelina Jolie, I'd never much liked her as an actress but something she said in this interview has stayed with me. She was talking about her numerous tattoos & how she had had a number of them removed or altered. One that she'd had removed was of a window on her lower back - it's significance was that she used to spend a lot of time looking out of windows & longing to be outside, she'd had it removed, the reason being that she now lived her life "outside" all the time - this touched me & still has a profound effect upon me. It's time to stop sitting & watching, waiting for the "perfect picture" to come into view...it's time to remove the glass that stands between me & the here & now...it's time to stop looking through glass windows.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

-Thoreau-