Today

I wear this bracelet as a constant reminder to be here. NOW.

I will be the first person to admit that I am always plotting, planning, pondering... I have a tickertape of people and places- and wants and wishes- passing through my consciousness at any given moment; Sometimes things line up just so and someone finds a note on their car, a forwarded article, a book or a sweet treat on their doorstep.  Of course, none of these things are negative consequences of being a 'thinker' although, at times, being a thinker strips one of TODAY. For me, one of the stiffest challenges in life is being in the moment, being in the now, being present. In the past few months, I have consciously been working towards being more aware of what is going on around me, right then, in real time. When I find myself anxious about something in the past, something in the future, something I know I cannot directly control, I look. I pick a color, like red for example, and start counting all of the different shades of red I see around me at that moment. Seriously. I did it yesterday at a stop light: I counted 11 different shades of red at the intersection of S.Lamar and Riverside. It's a shifting of consciousness that helps pull me back into the present moment. 

I am fully aware that there is a day in the very near future when my year will be more 'planned' out: I will have received my acceptance letter for grad school; I will have added structure to my running; and I will have finally booked that ticket to another foreign land I've never been...

No longer will I be floating through my days, picking up work where I can [and truthfully, I suppose, when I feel like it]. 

No longer will I be running just to run, wearing no HRM and paying no attention to pace. 

and no longer will I be completely directionless...

...but for NOW, I am present and engaged in TODAY.

<'SIMERA' translates to 'TODAY' in Greek>

[for those that don't know, my father is 100% Greek]