Living in the NOW.

I'm reading yet another wonderful self-help book on Motherhood, called: I Was a Really Good Mom Before I had Kids: Reinventing Modern Motherhood. An easy read, I managed to finish it in one evening while Ryder was sleeping. The thing about these books is that they help to make you feel as though you are not alone. Your girlfriends are certainly supporters of you- but they can only support so much of you- as they have their own children- or if not children- LIVES that they need to live.

While this book is about motherhood, there are certain parts of the book that (I believe) apply to all aspects of living, whether or not you're a mother, a husband, a girlfriend, a fiance', a student, or a man looking for love in Mexico. Here is an excerpt:

"Without getting too philosophical, in a very real sense now is all we've got. We can't change the past and we can't predict the future. Today is the only time we can control, so we might as well devote as much as we can to what we're doing in the present. As Eckhart Tolle, best-selling author of The Power of Now, has said, "We spend our days dwelling on past mistakes - why did I have to eat that double cheeseburger? - or fretting about the future - the high school reunion is coming up, and I just ate that double cheeseburger." Lost in all that worrying is the present, the only period we can actually experience and enjoy at any given moment. "The now is the only thing there ever is, you can't get away from it," says Tolle. "But the voice in our head keeps us either in the past or in the future, treating the present moment as if it were the enemy."

"Yes, yes, we know: Children by their very nature encourage us to think about the future. And every parent does need to plan ahead. But sometimes, dwelling on the past and worrying about the future take over our thoughts - and our actions as well. Wouldn't it feel better to have a great moment now instead of thinking about one that may or may not happen in two days, two weeks, or two years?".

"But let's get real: Playing with horses is not always that compelling. Most of us would probably prefer to read the latest issue of People rather than slog through Curious George once again. So we'll say the unspeakable thing: More than occasionally, we retreat from our children's activities not because we can't do them, but because we don't want to. Part of the reason we don't live in the moment is that the moment before us is not really what we want. In truth, the moment before us is often not our moment at all, but our children's moment, and we resist it."

"It helps to remember that this moment, whatever it is, is fleeting. This phase will quickly pass, especially with young children. Just when you think you've got it down, everything will change."

And so, on this first day of October (as it's getting cooler, and the leaves are beginning to change their colors, and it may be time for bangs and turtlenecks and dark nail polish), I'll start living in the NOW. I'm already making the most of this day, working, blogging, and thinking of my wonderful son at school. He'll be learning how to treat his friends nicely, how to share, how to eat on his own, and maybe a little bit of Spanish and sign language. I'm going to appreciate the decision that I've made on sending him to school because I can take care of myself today, and someone will teach him some things that I couldn't- or don't know how- or don't have the patience to- teach him. I'll go to the gym, get that laundry done, and just take care of myself. Because- as the book put it- you need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. This is the same reasoning that is implemented when a plane is going down: "Secure your oxygen mask on you first, and then assist small children."

And once I'm done taking care of myself today, I am going to live in that moment when I go to pick him up...to watch is eyes light up and face shine as he runs to me with arms wide open. It just won't get any better than that.