Stability

Recently, I was accused of being a “live-in-the-moment” kind of person. I’m saying accused because in that particular conversation it wasn’t said as a compliment. Or at least that’s not how I saw it.

What matters is, it got me thinking.

First of all, I don’t view myself as that kind of person. I would love to be one, though. I would love to anchor myself to here-and-now, to be fully present in the current moment. Instead, I find myself constantly waiting and chasing. Worrying about the future. Regretting or missing different parts of the past. Always looking forward to something. Always impatient for something. “Can’t wait until” slips from my lips way too often.

As I tried to analyze why I’m like that, I realized that partially (mostly?) it’s based on rarely having any stability in my life.

I was a kid when a country I was born in collapsed. I witnessed a whole empire crumble around me. Not from the news on TV. Not from the stories retold by others. No, I was there, inside it. Everything I knew, everything I was used to—it all changed pretty much in an instant. 

Most of the nineties in my part of the world (my teenage years and young adulthood) was pretty much spent in survival mode. It taught me a lot. It made me strong and resilient. But it took its toll. The concept of stability had become alien to me. 

Or maybe it started much earlier, when I was a little girl and found out that my father wasn’t a part of a scientific expedition in a faraway land as I had believed. And that he was never coming home. Because he didn’t have any interest or intention to. Because he was living happily with his family in the same city as me and didn’t really care if I existed.

Maybe it was then that I started subconsciously waiting for better, happier times. 

Because, as we know, hope dies last.

My first big loss was my grandfather who was like a dad to me. Strong, active, and full of life. He fell and broke his leg, and then he was gone within a month. All of a sudden, everything in his body crumbled like so many things tend to do in my life.

Then there were ten years of marriage. I loved him with all my heart. We built a house together and had a son. We even moved to a different country together. Throughout most of those years he was struggling with addiction. And I kept trying to save him. Needless to say, stability doesn’t belong in a scenario like that.

He lost the battle. Taking his life at 35, leaving behind a 10-year-old son, and shattering my whole world once again.

Years of living in immigration as a single mother didn’t contribute to feeling secure. The mythical concept of stability kept slipping away from me.

So no wonder I struggled to find comfort and security and to be able to look into the future without fear. 

Maybe this “can’t wait until” is rooted in the never dying glimmer of hope. I wish I could let go of the fear and doubt. To stop worrying about everything and just live happily in the moment. Such conflicted feelings — fearing the future subconsciously yet craving a better tomorrow and always trying to rush the time to see if that bright future is indeed around the corner. 

So yes, I have to admit, becoming a “live-in-the-moment” kind of person is not a reality for me now, but most definitely an aspiration.