"I desire the simple things."

Life sometimes seems so complicated when we become grown-ups, doesn't it? Over the course of the past few days, I downloaded some of the songs that my best friends and I used to sing along to at the top of our lungs--windows down and the sunroof open--as we cruised around the city, fueled by cheap gas and Dairy Queen Blizzard sugar highs. What happened to those girls? For me--I got lost. I got lost in responsibilities, expectations, to-do lists, and trying the best I could to place a steady foot on the next step up to adulthood.

Now that some of those steps that I took have shown themselves to have majorly unsteady, I find myself looking back. Not that I want to regress back to my teenage years, because I don't. But I do cherish how much I lived in the present. I want to spend more time looking in instead of always out and up at my future. I'm going to try to do all the things that those self-help gurus say about "being in the present" and "living in the now." I am the worst worrier. I worry about whether it will rain, or whether Maya is lonely when I can't come straight home after work. I worry about whether I will ever be loved purely and unselfishly and whether I'll ever be strong enough to believe in that love. But why worry? (This seems like a simple question, but to me it is the same as asking, "But why breathe?")

I realize, though, that I can only live in the present. I can't change the past and I can't see the future. All I know for sure when I open my eyes in the morning is that I will get out of bed. I will have good moments and bad moments. Some days the good will outweigh the bad, and other days it will be the opposite. I will try to take steps when I feel that they're best for me, and not take them just because I think it's expected of me.

It's like learning to walk again. One foot in front of the other, down a long path, where you can only see the step ahead of you.