Moms always know…

I don’t talk to my Mom on a daily basis… maybe once or twice a week if I’m lucky. Yet, somehow, she always knows exactly the right time to reach out. I don’t know if it’s that mother-daughter connection, or if there’s something in the winds, or maybe we’re just similar enough that we experience highs and lows at the same time, but somehow, she always seems to know. And even if she doesn’t exactly know, somehow she always ends up reaching out at the right time anyway…

Lask week I had a meeting with an advisor at the University I’ll be attending this fall. I’m only taking 6 credits (3 classes), and one of the classes I might be able to test out of. However, I’m not removing anything else from my schedule. And every Thursday, I’ll be missing 5 hours of work that have to get made up at some point in my week… Monday, Tuesday, and Friday my schedule will be the same as it is now… leave for the barn in the mornings at 6:30, go to work, barn in the evenings, home by 7. But currently, I have Wednesday and Thursday evenings off… once classes start, however, I’ll have one class from 6-9 pm every Wednesday, which means I won’t get home til 10. Thursday I have classes all afternoon and won’t get home til 6… which is the earliest I’ll ever be home during the week. Add in the fact that I still go to the barn 4 mornings during the week, and I’ll have to be to work earlier and stay later to make up the hours I’ll miss every Thursday, and the result is a pending nuclear meltdown in Katie’s World.

As it gets closer and closer to next week… the week I start classes… my nerves and anxiety increase ten-fold daily… I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I won’t have any time for my friends. I won’t have any time to date. I won’t have a life outside of work and school. But I can’t give anything up because I can’t afford to… and this goes round and round and round and round in my head all day long…

And then when I checked my email this morning there was one from my Mom. It contained two links and simply said, “SAVOR this electronic feast…” So I clicked the first link. It was an inspirational slideshow with beautiful landscape pictures and a message. I usually think these are nice, but I never think much about them. This time, however, the words hit home. They were exactly what I needed to hear. The first thing it said was, Stop for a moment and calm your thoughts.

So I did.

Let go of your anxieties and look around you.

So I did.

What do you see? umm… my office… a mess… magazines… photos on the wall…

You see a world filled with beauty… ohhh, yeah…. You see a life filled with possibilities… hmm, yes… You see dreams being born, being nurtured, and being fulfilled… okay, I get it now… What else?

After more pictures and more words, it said:

The future is uncertain. And that means there’s no limit as to how beautiful and joyful you can make it. Yet what you have is right now. And right now is completely as it should be.

Completely as it should be… completely as it should be? Okay… 

And then the kicker. The words that reached me and spoke to me and told me I would be fine…

Right now, any anxiety you may have about the future is only an illusion. Let it go.

An illusion. Let it go. *deep breath*

Let it fade away as the beauty and perfection of right now wash over you. The best thing you can do for the future is to live with everything you have in the present.

Live in the present. The future is an illusion. It will be what I make it. And I will make it work. And I will be okay.

*breathe out*

I will be okay.

Thanks, Mom. I love you.

(The inspirational slideshow can be viewed in its entirety here.)