Have you ever been so busy waiting for a moment that you forgot to live it!?
We try so hard to enjoy the moment. We tell ourselves to be present, to appreciate the people around us, and to make the most of our time. Though deep down, are we really enjoying it? Or are we secretly thinking, “When will we get to meet again!?”
It’s strange, isn’t it!?
Sometimes, you can be surrounded by people you love, laughing and having a wonderful time, and yet a tiny part of your mind is already thinking about the goodbye. You’re enjoying the moment, but you’re also thinking about how much you’re going to miss it when it’s over.
Maybe that’s one of the strangest things about being human.
We can miss something before we’ve even finished experiencing it.
We spend so much of our lives waiting for things to happen.
“I can’t wait for the holidays.”
“I can’t wait to be with the people I love.”
“I can’t wait to become a writer.”
We convince ourselves that once something happens, we’ll finally feel happy or complete. Then that moment arrives, and sometimes… we feel strangely blank.
Why!?
Why do we sometimes focus on what could go wrong, even during the moments that you’ve been waiting for. Why can reality feel so different from the version we imagined in our heads?
Maybe it’s because we spend so much time looking forward to something that we often forget to experience it when it finally arrives.
We build beautiful versions of the future in our minds. Imagining how happy we’ll be, everything will feel perfect, all aspects finally beginning to make sense.
Then the moment arrives.
And it’s just… a moment.
Not because it isn’t special, but because we expected it to change everything.
We’re either looking backwards, remembering what has already happened, or looking forwards, waiting for what comes next.
And somewhere between the two, the present quietly passes us by.
You’re sitting with your loved ones, laughing about something silly, but somewhere in your mind you’re thinking, “When will we all be together like this again!?”
You’re having the holiday you waited months for, but already thinking about how quickly it will end.
You’re living a chapter you once wished for, but already wondering what the next chapter will look like.
And then one day, it’s over.
That’s when we realise how much we miss it.
What if we don’t miss the moment itself!? Perhaps we miss the feeling of being there without knowing that it would become a memory!?
We don’t always miss the big things.
Sometimes, we miss the ordinary ones.
The random conversations. The silly laughs. Someone’s voice from another room. Sitting beside someone without saying anything. The routine we once found boring. The little things we complained about.
At the time, they didn’t feel special.
They were just… life.
We didn’t know we were making memories. We were simply living.
Maybe growing up makes all of this even stranger.
Life is moving so quickly. We’re changing, meeting new people, leaving old places behind, starting new chapters and becoming versions of ourselves we never imagined.
We want time to move faster when we’re waiting, but desperately want it to slow down when something is ending.
We want to grow up, and then suddenly wonder where all the time went.
Maybe we spend so much time waiting to become who we want to be that we forget to appreciate who we are becoming along the way.
Maybe we don’t need to enjoy every single moment perfectly.
Maybe we just need to notice it while it’s happening.
To laugh without worrying about when the laughter will end.
To be with someone without already thinking about the goodbye.
To experience something without expecting it to be perfect.
One day, we might look back at this exact version of our lives. These people, these routines, these ordinary days and wish we could return to them.
So maybe, just for today, we can stop asking, “When will this be over!?”
And instead ask ourselves:
“What if this is already one of the moments I’ll miss someday!?”
