Girl Everlasting...

In school, I am reading Tuck Everlasting with my students. It's a tale of a family who happens upon a spring that bestows upon them eternal life. They keep the secret for eighty-seven years until a young girl, Winnie, discovers them and learns of their immortality. The father, Angus Tuck, tries to impress upon Winnie that eternal life is not all it's cracked up to be...If I knowed how to climb back on the wheel, I'd do it in a minute. You can't have living without dying, so you can't call it living, what we got. We just are, we just be, like rocks beside the road. 

I don't think any of us out there hope to just "be". To just take up space until our space is filled by another. But so many of us do, don't we?

We wait...
...for the work week to be over
...to make more money
...for the storm to pass
...for the cold to break
...for heartbreak to heal
...for the child to sleep
...for her to love you
...to see if he'll leave
...for the perfect moment to take that leap

But what if we've already done it? What if we've already been and lived and seen and done? What if we let go of the waiting and acknowledged the living?

And I don't consider my life to be of any great importance or interest but I've...

....kicked my legs high while the band marched on
...moved my tassel, twice,  and started a new adventure
...fallen in heart-stopping, bone-crushing love....quite a few times
...felt the sun on my face from distant countries
...opened the box and pulled out the ring
...shopped for a wedding dress with my mother
...seen two pink lines
...watched my body swell with life...twice
...fallen in heart-stopping, bone-crushing love...with a child
....broken bread with friends and family who know my real story
...let down my guard
...built up walls
...gave up and gave in
...admitted I couldn't do it all
...found him
...accepted and acknowledged
...loved

Don't waste your time waiting for what is to come....it is already here.