Love the Phase You’re In

I am a super star, number one, ahead of schedule, big time planner. I’m the girl who always turned in my research paper two weeks early, has a chart with every minute planned for events at work, and who feels behind if I haven’t worked ahead.

The future has always been important to me.

Heck, I think it’s something that is almost part of the American dream, engrained in us as kids.

Work hard now so you can get good grades and get into a good college.

Work hard in college so you can get a good job.

Work hard in your job so you can get a promotion.

We are always working now for the future.

But are you enjoying your NOW?

Um, no. You’re working your *#$ off to get to the future.

Well, I think it’s time us planners unite and take a planning vacation.

Planning has its place but stop. Look around (and listen, Ice is back with a brand new edition).

Take a look around you at the phase you are in now. You will never have this exact phase, this exact moment ever again. With that perspective, take a good look at it again. What do you see? How do you feel? What do you want to do right now to embrace that moment and enjoy it to its fullest?

You want to know when it hit me?

It was a Friday night. I was in my jammies, washing my dishes at 10pm with Spotify playing in the background. The Spice Girls song ‘Wannabe” came out and let me tell you – this song has been MY JAM ever since it came out back in the day. I have clear memories of squealing like only a middle schooler can when it came on the radio and blasting it in the car (thanks for letting me do that Mom and Dad).

To this day, this songs rocks my world. Naturally, I turned up the song and had a hard core dance party, flailing limbs and sock sliding all around my apartment.

It rocked. I loved every second.

Then I realized, “Whoa. When am I going to have this moment again? This freedom?” [Well, let’s be real, this happens every time this song comes on, public or private.] My point being is that I am a 28 year old single girl living alone in her apartment and having dance parties alone on a Friday night – and I love that right now.

I have no kids to account to, no man to roll his eyes at the song (pshhh, like I could date a guy who rolled his eyes at Spice Girls. C’mon. Not my man.), no room mate to be annoyed, no work to do (at the moment I was describing above at least). I don’t have to be quiet, go to bed early, or even clean those dishes if I didn’t want to.

This isn’t the phase that I thought I would be at when back-then Megan was working so hard to get to this future moment (oh hey life curveballs). But now that I’m in it, I love it and am owning it.

It is my moment in this awesome period of absolute freedom in life.

I’m talking, come and go as I please, sole remote control power, sleep in the middle of the bed, eat my super weird meals, work out at the gym however much I want, spend money on expensive clothes but live in kind of ridiculous temperatures to save money on the electric bill, type of life.

This is incredible. This is my moment. I want to take it, savor it, and enjoy it. It will eventually change, and I will have another completely different moment to enjoy. So gosh darn it, I’m going to enjoy this one.

This is my moment; yours may be incredibly different. You may be sitting in a rocker, feeding a darling little baby with spit up covering your clothes and 3 day old hair. Yeah. That’s your moment – and it’s awesome. Take it, enjoy it.

You may be hiking a solo journey on the Appalachian Trail. Your moment.

You may be at work, taking a break from a crazy spreadsheet. Your moment.

These moments are all different. Some may sound horrible to you, but here’s the kicker. It’s your moment to take and make it what you want.

The situation I described to you earlier about my evening would have depressed me so much a week before. A week before when I was feeling the lowest of low, after being fresh from a breakup and feeling so alone.

Healing happens, progress is made, and perspective shifts. Now I am ready to embrace this absolute moment. I also need to remember when those low moments happen, to embrace them too. They are there for a reason, are fleeting, and are some of the most learning, healing times there are.

What I’m here to say is to stop. Stop working in this moment to get to the next, future moment that you think will be better. Take in this moment RIGHT NOW. I bet you will find it pretty great if you look for it.

It’s time we stop pushing past these moments that we think aren’t that great to get to future moments we think will be better. If we continue that cycle then it’s pretty much guaranteed that in that future moment we’ll just be pushing ahead to get to another future moment.

Savor the time to jam to Spice Girls in your jammies – or whatever moment you have right now. It’s the only thing you have control of to be yours. So take it and make it everything it can be right now.