How we live right now.

What's playing on the iPod right now: That Green Gentleman by Panic At the Disco

"We are always getting ready to live, but never living."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's the beginning of a brand new year and the time for dropping old bad habits and picking up new bad habits. It's time for your mouth to make bets that your body may not be able to keep. It might be silly to make these resolutions, but it's even sillier to not consider making any.

Oh, I could say that I'm going to do this or that. I could compose a plan and air my intentions publicly. I could post it as my facebook status. Haha. But that doesn't make it so. That won't make it real.

Will I follow through? Is there any legitimacy to my blabber? Or will my good intentions get trapped under the weight of all my laziness, misdirected blame and bad excuses?

At this precise moment, there's a world of opportunity before me unlike any new year I've experienced. In my home there's a subdued giddiness; an unspoken excitement everyone feels that whispers of something amazing that's coming right around the corner.

Last year we worked hard at cultivating friendships, weeding out toxic thorns and making as many connections as we could, in the hopes of having a prosperous new year. We didn't sit idly by and hope that one would come to us. We thanked the powers that be for all of the wonderful opportunities and did our best to create a better new year. We're hoping, praying and working for the best.

But until then, we're living the best way we can right now. I'm trying very hard not to regret or be sorrowful over the things that I've left behind, and I'm reminding myself to keep from daydreaming about what I'd like the future to be. I only have this moment. This moment. I can't change the past or predict the future, but what can I do about this moment?

I can present my best self, look at what the moment holds and who I'm with. I can make better decisions and say yes to more of what I'd love to do and no to more of what I'd rather not.

This formula seems to be working. Our moments are filled with friends, laughter and oh, my goodness, love, love, love. Happily ever after, after all, can only be lived on a daily basis.

We're not waiting for someone or something to give us permission to live right now. And thank the heavens above, for we are most definitely living - right now!