Squeeze the juice, suck it off my fingers one by one, catch it on the back of my hand as it runs down my chin, then lick it up, tasting it all.

Recently I realized I Have Arrived. This isn’t the looking forward to, the preparation, the hunker-down-and-work-for-the-future phase of my life. If I’m not enjoying my life now, there’s no way the addition of more things or experiences is gonna make me enjoy it. My husband is beautiful, giving, and we enjoy working in partnership. My little kids are inquisitive whirlwinds of joy and challenge (and they’re definitely not struggling to enjoy every day!). I’m the boss of my work – it’s creative and satisfying and I get to share the ups and downs with a beloved friend. I live in the centre of a culturally rich and walkable city, and my body is still capable.

I spent a lot of my life looking forward, preparing, attempting to guarantee future safety, career, love, and lifestyle. My useful habit of delaying gratification, though, maybe it’s time to rein it in.

I wanna learn to squeeze the juice out of the regular moments of my life, to notice and feel them a little more fully. To turn off that machine that seems to be always running in the background, the machine that’s thinking ahead and strategizing about how to maximize my future pleasure. All its hum buzz clattering is distracting me from the raindrops that are bouncing back up off the surface of the lake, and the soft tips of Neve’s fingers as they rest against the inside of my palm. Some of the delicious, bittersweet juice of life is falling into the damp sand, I’m missing it.