taking in each moment as it comes

just days away from boarding a plane to hong kong. this is something we have meant and planned to do twice in twelve months. and twice we canceled. first it was hwubby not healing properly after extensive gum surgeries. then it was him hit by a taxi. call me superstitious, whatever. this time around i said i am not going to make any formal announcement, and by that i mean telling my eighty-one-year-young mother, until a week before departure. so there i am narrowing down the choices for travel insurance - we didn't have any the first time and we lost a bundle - when hwubby walks through the door and says, they have to extract a tooth on friday. can anyone blame me for feeling a punch and squeeze in the chest. i can see ten thousand thoughts going in ten thousand and one directions. fortunately i spot a lifeline in the mumbo jumbo of mental jungle. a golden ray that clearly says, stay in the present. so i take a deep breath in, long breath out. i have to do it a few rounds. the sense of being overwhelmed keeps shooting out tentacles like a giant octopus and going straight towards my neck. a couple of times it nearly gets me. before it can have my neck in its grip i keep saying to myself quietly, stay in the present, stay in the present. it's hard work, i'm telling ya. by the time i go to bed i feel like i come out of a hard-won struggle. i am not blinded by tendencies borne out of poverty consciousness. i am simply, as hwubby says, you are really working hard to take in each moment as it comes, good for you. hey, i'll take that.

wow. i'm not kidding. as i am typing this, hwubby calls and says, i can have the tooth pulled this afternoon instead of friday. such a move on the part of grace. i feel like this is my reward for staying in the moment.