We watched “Interstellar” Saturday night, for probably the third time. If you’ve never seen it, a brief synopsis: on a near-future drought-destroyed Earth, a small handful of astronauts and scientists embark on a long-shot mission to save all of humanity. The thing that makes Interstellar fun, though, is how it plays with the idea of time travel – not actually walking around in the past like Marty McFly in Back to the Future, but subtly leaving clues to our former selves to help them out in some way. I’m a sucker for all time travel stories and alternate reality stories.
While watching the movie, I remembered a Facebook post I made about a year and a half ago:
“I had an “Interstellar” moment this morning. I run a loop around my neighborhood three times each morning. On my second time around this morning, I looked at my first-loop footprints and thought, “a different version of me left those prints, one that had just woken up and was still shaking off sleep. Now I’m on my second lap and I feel awake and tinglingly alive.” I left a message for the future me, who would be finishing up the run in about 14 minutes. It made me smile to write it and smile to encounter it later on. A message from the past. 😊
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how life can only be lived in this present moment. It is always “today,” always “right now”. So, today is the day I was born, is the day I graduated high school, is the day I gave birth to Sam, is the day I wrote this post, is the day I die. Looking at life this way truly helps me appreciate how precious this moment is, no matter what is happening in it.”
We all just want what is going on now, this global pandemic, to be over – to fast forward 6 weeks, or 8 weeks, or however long it is. To have life be normal again.
I’m grateful to my past self for reminding me that now is all I have, as surreal and scary as it may be sometimes. And I’m grateful for now, to be alive in this moment.
