Here Now: Reckoning with Mortality to Remain Present, Even if Painful

There’s no script for this thing called life. No manual. No toolkit. We made up rules to follow (and I use the term “we” loosely). Rules that don’t make room for our diverse and unique human experiences in their beautiful, messy complexities.

Lately, I’ve had to face some hard truths and learn some tough lessons. When I can’t find peace internally or externally, I return to the words of ancestors because they steady me in a way nothing else can.

“Living in a culture that is always encouraging us to plan for the future, it is no easy task to

develop the capacity to be here now... When we live fully in the present, when we acknowledge that death is always with us and not just there at the moment when we breathe our last breath, we are not devastated by events over which we have no control- losing a job, rejection by someone we hoped to connect with, the loss of a longtime friend or companion... everything we seek can only be found in the present. To abandon the present in order to look for things in the future is to throw away the substance and hold onto the shadow… To be here now does not mean that we do not make plans but that we learn to give the making of future plans only a small amount of energy. And once future plans are made, we release our attachment to them...” -bell hooks, All About Love, Chapter 11: “Loss: Loving Into Life and Death”

My takeaway from re-reading and immersing myself in bell hooks writing last year, one of the worst years of my life, is simple, but it’s not easy at all. The future isn’t promised, and despair steals the very life I’m meant to be living.

“That success ladder was not created for me. The 'table' will never hold us all.”

When I first began to approach my mid-forties and took inventory of my career and my life, I was devastated at first. I felt the weight of time, how I may have more behind me than in front of me. Retirement worries made my heart sink, piling onto grief about being single, childless, and lacking the traditional career accolades that indicate “success.” Admittedly, the culprit of competition and comparison compelled me to despair scroll on social media for hours wondering, where did I go wrong?

I thought I did everything “right.” I followed the rules I was taught to follow, rules rooted in supremacy and hierarchy, and still, so much didn’t work out the way I was promised it would. I sat in that grief for a moment. But I didn’t stay there. I refused to blame and shame myself for the invisible legacy of lockout that has interrupted my trajectory in work, and in life. I have done all I can do and more. Two times harder, three times smarter. That success ladder was not created for me. That table will never hold us all-not all this intelligence, brilliance, and depth.

While I meticulously followed a path that was supposed to lead me to “success,” it cost me a lot. Weathering shows up mentally, emotionally, not just physically. Meanwhile, my idea of success was transforming as my knowledge, and my radical self-love began growing in abundance. All that I have seemingly loss in the form of relationships, opportunities, and financial gain, have created room for what I truly needed at this point in my life… consciousness, clarity, courage, and continued commitment. I am mentally free to be authentically, me.

“I don't want to be my oppressor.”

I don't want to be my oppressor. I have no desire to uphold their characteristics. I cannot and will not spend my remaining time on this earth performing worthiness in a system designed to question my humanity, value, and gifted contributions. Not without calling it what it is. Not pretending I can outsmart and outwork it. I don’t want to hustle. I want to be healthy and whole. I refuse to assimilate to participate. Absolutely not.

Every barrier I’ve encountered, I’ve built a bridge. Why? It’s in my DNA. Whiteness is a construction created for oppression. Blackness is a culture that emerged in spite of it. I proudly come from people who have consistently taken nothing and made something. Who’ve held unwavering strength to find a way from lack and limitation to luxury, often through their own creation and did it with love and perseverance. And still… I’m exhausted.

I often daydream about what I could do with my time, energy, and money if I didn’t have to fight for freedom. If I didn’t have to conform and perform to prove myself. What could we do, who could we be, if we were all fully free? Because none of us completely are. And even the “freedoms” we have came/come at a heavy cost. But I always snap back to reality with the understanding that my intentional actions right now can help shape what's to come. I truly believe that's what freedom fighters had to do that came before us. We are evidence.

“Despair steals energy we could apply to actually living.”

The truth is, we have no control over how the future unfolds. We aren’t even promised moment to moment, let alone next week, next month, or next year. To despair over what we cannot control steals energy we could apply to actually living… the small joyful moments, the wisdom, the deep healing breath we can access when we choose to remain present.

And it is a choice. Even when times are difficult. Consistent comfort is not guaranteed. The only constant is change, and change will stretch us. It will challenge us. This doesn’t mean we reject future possibilities, but it means that even in the midst of persistent problems we pay attention to the positive of what is now so that it grows. The questions I’ve kept coming back to in this painful period of my life are, What am I learning at this moment? How will these lessons ground me in my purpose and guide me to my joy?

So far, my lessons are leading me to lean into and expand the both/and. My grief and gratitude. The growth in my gift. The rejection and resilience. What feels like pressure might just be preparation for what’s to come. I’ve found peace in pivoting my perspective. I’m paying attention to what is, not what could have been or what might be if I don’t make the “right” or “good” choices. I’m not catastrophizing this moment and assigning it to the rest of my life, even though admittedly, that’s a flaw of mine.

“We cannot control as much as we think we can and often attempt to, no matter how much we plan, prepare, or pray.”

As human beings, two things are true. After birth, we live life, and we leave this earth. No one asked to be here or requested the circumstances in which they were born, and no one knows how much time they have. No one. That’s a foundational commonality of our shared humanity. What happens during the living is different for every single person, shaped by countless variables and lived experience influenced by navigating socialization into oppressive systems not built for us all to survive, let alone thrive. And still, so much remains unknown until it arrives. Our humanity has limits. We cannot control as much as we think we can and often attempt to, no matter how much we plan, prepare, and pray. Believing otherwise can be both arrogant and misguided, and life will humble us without consent. Every. Single. Time.