Tuesday Morning. I would rather be reading.

I have an on again, off again relationship with my Kindle.

And right now we are pretty hot and heavy.

I've actually referred to my Kindle as my boyfriend for years. I dated a guy once who, on our third date, told me that he wanted to "replace" my Kindle.

His word choice alone - and the implication therein - should have saved me the disaster of a relationship that followed, but c'est la vie, right?

I go back and forth between thinking a LOT about the past and trying to be as totally and completely PRESENT as I possibly can. I read Ekhart Tolle's books, A New Earth and The Power of Now, in July and was really compelled to be more aware of my ego and how it was actually interacting with people FOR me, to be more connected to the present moment and being okay in it, and to seeing the sheer nature of my consciousness and being as something divine and ENOUGH. (Okay, okay - full disclosure - A New Earth was riveting and actually SORT OF sometimes made sense to me, in an obtuse and esoteric kind of way. The Power of Now is kind of choppy and I haven't ACTUALLY finished yet).

The thing is, and maybe this is one of my proverbial crosses to bear, I've always been overly sensitive and aware of TIME PASSING. The story continuing on and on and on and on. Staying content in the present without bringing the past with me is so damn difficult. I was 18 years old finishing my freshman year of college, (and I got to go to my DREAM COLLEGE and I loved, loved, loved it SO much), and I remember thinking, as I walked out of Gund 212 to take a box down to the minivan, "I'm 25% done with college. Oh NO!"

That's not really living in the moment. That's creating anxiety about time passing.

Lemon water. First thing. Every morning.

But I've always had this underlying anxiety about time passing. And I can look back on anything and everything - EVEN YESTERDAY FOR CHRIST'S SAKE - through rose-colored glasses and I start to MOURN it. I mourn the passage of time in some small way every single day. And I sort of hate living like this. It all but paralyzes me sometimes.

But I see life like this big, interwoven, fascinating STORY, and it's why I love to read so much, or maybe my love of reading from such a young age is WHY I see life like this big, interwoven, fascinating story. And I get frustrated that the only part of the story I can really hold on to, or READ, is the past, and I can't quite seem to make the present or my future into what I want it to be yet.

So I try to be really present and aware in the now, this now, AND THIS NOW, and this now (and I teach it day in and day out in yoga classes) and present to the reality of my consciousness - my spirit - that is the same divine spark of awareness that is the essence of ALL beings. And it makes sense for a split second here and a split second there, and I guess that should be a good place to start.

But mostly I just want to read, read, read - to devourer books that tell the stories that I would sort of like to tell with none of the apologies I feel like I have to offer in regards to how I see and feel and experience the world.