Was I There For It?

I have had a fear for as long as I can remember.

Of arriving at the end of my life and realising I had fast-forwarded through it.

I used to think that fear was about doing enough. Experiencing enough. Filling the time with meaningful things — the right trips, the right moments, the people I love.

But I'm understanding now that was never really it.

You can have a life full of beautiful experiences and still have missed all of it.

Because you were somewhere else the whole time.

The Blur

There's a walk I do a couple of times a week through the woods near our house.

I have done it blurry so many times I've lost count.

Blurry is when my body is on the path and my mind is somewhere else entirely. Running through what comes after. Replaying something that happened. Half-composing a message I need to send.

I come home and I could barely tell you what I saw.

The blur has no smell. No physical sensation. No colour. It's like being fast-forwarded through your own life — the scenery passing but none of it landing.

I have had blurry showers. Blurry meals. Blurry conversations where I was planning what to say next instead of hearing what was being said. Blurry playing with my daughters.

All of it was my life. And I wasn't really there.

The Same Walk

This week I was on that same path.

The first green buds on the trees. The colours of the early flowers pushing up through the ground. A myriad of birds — I could hear them individually, each one distinct. The sun warm on my face.

Same woods. Same path. Same ordinary day.

Completely different life.

Not because anything had changed outside me. Because I was actually there this time. Present enough to let it land.

That's what I'm understanding about time. It's not that routine makes it blur. It's that absence does. You can be in the most extraordinary place in the world and still be in fast forward if your mind is somewhere else. And you can be in a doctor's waiting room and have time stop completely.

Yesterday I was waiting with my two year old at the doctor's office. We got comfortable. I had brought books. We read together. Talked. I was completely there — not checking my phone, not wondering when the doctor would come, not anywhere else at all.

It was ordinary. And it was fully lived.

That waiting room was part of my life. And I was there for it.

The Shower

Some mornings I turn the shower to cold at the end.

Not for health reasons. Not because I should.

Because of what it does. The shock of it — and then my heartbeat, loud and clear. My breath. Every nerve in my body awake and reporting in.

I feel so alive.

The warm water before it is different too when I'm present. The sensation of it on my skin. The smell of the soap. A quiet gratitude for something so ordinary — warm running water, indoors, any time I want it. Something most of human history never had.

The blurry version of the same shower is nothing. It happens and leaves no trace.

The present version is its own small world.

I'm not trying to just fill my life with more extraordinary moments anymore.

I'm trying to actually be there for the ordinary ones.

The walk I do every week. The shower every morning. The waiting room with my two year old. The coffee. The birds I can hear right now through the window.

This is my life.

Not just the highlight reel I was saving up for.

All of it. Even the parts I used to fast-forward through. Slowly I am shifting the ratio one ordinary day at a time.

And the only question that matters — the one underneath the fear I've carried for years —

Was I there for it?

🌲