The Pause: 04

“I got so used to preparing for the impact that I forgot what it felt like to simply exist.”

Sometimes it was just fear asking me to rehearse pain before it ever arrived.

I have spent so much of my life preparing for “the impact” that I didn’t realize how often I was experiencing it before anything had actually happened.

Waiting for the tone to change.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Waiting for the disappointment.

Waiting for the phone call.

Waiting for the moment when something good would somehow become something painful.

My mind called it preparation.

My body experienced it as tension.

I could be sitting in a perfectly peaceful moment and still feel like I needed to brace myself.

Because somewhere along the way, I learned that being prepared meant being protected.

If I anticipated the hurt, maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much.

If I expected the ending, maybe I wouldn’t be surprised.

If I stayed three steps ahead, maybe nothing could catch me off guard.

But there is a cost to constantly preparing for impact.

You never fully experience the moments that aren’t hitting you.

I could be laughing while wondering when the laughter would end.

I could be enjoying someone’s presence while preparing myself for their absence.

I could finally have something I wanted and immediately start imagining how I could lose it.

The future became a place I was constantly visiting to make sure I would survive it.

And meanwhile, my actual life was happening without me.

I’m learning that safety isn’t the same thing as constant anticipation.

I don’t have to know what happens next to be present for what is happening now.

I don’t have to rehearse every possible pain to prove that I’m prepared for life.

Sometimes the most present thing I can do is notice:

Nothing is happening right now.

I’m here.

I’m breathing.

I’m okay.

The impact hasn’t come.

And if it does, I will meet it then.

Not today.

Not ten steps ahead.

Then.

Because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life bracing for a future that may never arrive.

I want to teach my body that it is allowed to experience peace without immediately questioning how long it will last.

I want to stop treating calm like the silence before something bad happens.

Maybe sometimes calm is just calm.

Maybe this moment doesn’t need me to prepare for it.

Maybe it just needs me to be here for it.

The Pause

What would you experience differently if you stopped preparing for an impact that hasn’t happened?

Pull Quote:

“Sometimes it was just fear asking me to rehearse pain before it ever arrived.”