Before and After

Imagine that something happened, some major event, one of those monumental moments of change that split your life into the before and after.  Now imagine that you're in the after, looking back at the before and thinking about how much you failed to appreciate it and how it's much too late now.  Eventually you'll adjust to the after and it will become the new normal, but you'll always remember that moment of splintering and you'll always be able to look back at the before with a mix of longing and perhaps regret.

These days I feel acutely that I'm living in the before.  No, I'm not psychic and I don't know what's going to happen, but I find myself picturing with great clarity the various afters before being drawn back into the present.  I don't know why it's happening now with such regularity, except that I'm under a tremendous amount of stress and perhaps that's the single creative outlet that my exhausted brain found to release some steam.  I think we can all agree that it's a rather morbid outlet, but one can only control so many things in life and controlling my brain has never been my strong suit.

I am not sure what's worse, living life in the constant see-saw between the possible future horrors (because of course the mind never paints a rosy after) and the relief of returning to the before or living in the present without ever acknowledging that it can end in a matter of seconds.  Perhaps I should prefer ignorance, but my desire for control is of course screaming that knowing the future is better than being ignorant of it.  

Except, I don't know the future.  Of course I don't.  I don't know which, if any, of the horrors that my mind is painting for me will come to fruition.  Perhaps all of them.  Perhaps none.  Perhaps a disaster that I haven't even tried imagining myself living through.  Does it matter?  Is picturing them now in all their gory detail and bloody aftermath better than being surprised?  Let's face it, we're all surprised by things every day, even things we imagine happening because even as we're picturing them happening, we are thinking and hoping and praying that they won't happen to us.  As if by imagining ourselves getting that diagnosis in a doctor's office or watching our car careen off the road we can somehow ward it off.  Magical thinking at its best - if I imagine it, then it's not a surprising catastrophe anymore and therefore life won't throw it at me because the whole point is to be horribly surprised by bad things, isn't it?

So, what am I imagining as the possible afters?  It doesn't matter... What does matter is that it's forcing me to appreciate today just a little bit more and maybe that's what my brain is trying to tell me.  To stop, take a breath and allow myself to experience today because the splintering will come whether I'm too busy for it or not.