I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. And through all that waiting, here I am. For a long time, life was what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my journey would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through like a lifeboat. But I was wrong. So wrong. Because life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearls. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than at first glance. But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I was waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this is it.
