“Meet this moment with kindness”

From the daily guided meditation I listened to this morning:

“May you meet this moment with kindness

May you meet this moment like a good friend”

May I meet and sustain this moment of renewed sadness and concern for the future with kindness. Because sadness, in fact, is what I’m feeling now. It seeped in again through the cracks of a tired soul yesterday afternoon and evening despite the lovely company of my adventure buddy & friend & host here. The sadness crept into this limbo of a week’s break, in this two-week limbo between the closing coronation of one phase and the unknown opening of another stage. A sadness that is heightened by the particular date today: exactly three years ago I was starting a “fun girls trip” in Colorado with one of my best friends, both of us in need of distraction from difficult and confusing heart-breaks/crushes; and six months ago, I was heading out of California towards Colorado with a car-load of uncertainties – and now I’ve been living in Colorado for six months… that’s half a year, already…!

So many things have changed since that trip with my friend three years ago, and yet so many things seem to have remained similar, or have come full circle – for better or for worse.

And although I do have some certainties to which I can look forward for the upcoming months and lots of wonderful accomplishments from the past few months/years, in this moment I mostly feel the weight of what I don’t have, of what I didn’t get or achieve, of what I’ve lost or am leaving behind and will be losing. Together with the weight of the unknowns I’m still facing.

So today kindness towards myself (as well as the world around me, of course!) is a must.

Today I’m going to hike, not run.