I already wrote that record.

I already wrote that record.

That’s the sentence I thought this weekend walking the stairs up from the basement, lapping the living room and looking out the window. I already wrote that record.
So why would I be tempted to go back and write it some more?

Hope, where are you exactly? What’s the date and time? Part of you, I fear, has some catching up to do to join the present tense and leave the past behind. Isn’t it a wonder our present self can see clearly that parts of our hearts didn’t get the sign? Didn’t see the smoke, didn’t keep the pace, but part of our heart did so they call back to the past like a cheering fan seeing the runner approach and letting them know the finish line’s just ahead.

Catch up. You’re not there anymore. You’re here. You’re not that her anymore, you’re you. You got used to a certain scene and just stayed there, but you can’t stay there and you never were there and now it’s time to set up camp right here in this moment with this present heart in this present time to write what you know you know.

You know you know. And that goes for all of us. You don’t need a producer in California to jog your memory and your now-ery with your future-y to tell you that. You know. You are so used to thinking you don’t that it may be deep down, but you do. There’s knowing you have and an answer you desire and you already know it, so find it.

You already wrote that record. You already lived that chapter. You may love it so much that the desire to repeat it again and again feels cozy and warm even if parts of that chapter have you busted up and crying. At least you know where that goes in the story.

I’d say let go of that old one and be fully awake for this one you live now. For the one who lives now. With a notion of knowing what you know like you didn’t know before.

I’m 44. I’m wrestling with place and identity, with femininity and time. I’m wrestling with the sands in the hourglass and tempering my urge to break window pane glass. That’s the thought, that’s the now, that’s the present tense. The present intense. Don’t soften it because you like what happened before so much.

You can’t do what you did before even if it comes around again, Carly Simon. We can’t go back and we wouldn’t want to. I know some say to keep on and by keeping on, they mean, same old same old. It takes work to stay back. It takes work to walk forward. I choose the second one.

No writing again what’s already been written. Time to lean in to what’s readily real. You are. I am. This is. Now what?

High five.