Today and Tomorrow

(Note: Listen to this while reading this.)

So... I've been sick. Mucus and tears, sleep and cough, head filled with cotton and thoughts filled with same, kind of sick. Today, on the way home from work, I was overcome with a sense of possibility. I don't know how else to describe it. Perhaps there's a better word... brb. Nope, Thesaurus.com has no better word for the feeling I had other than possibility, but it did have a few words that helped flesh out the idea. Hope, play, fortuity, opportunity, and prayer (although perhaps not the prayer that Thesaurus.com meant).

I think the feeling had something to do with the weather, the fact that I hadn't been out of my house for two days, the fact that I hadn't had a smoke or a coffee for 24 hours, and the 14 hour sleep I got the night before. It was the kind of feeling that belongs to a crisp, dry Seattle night right around the time that fall turns into winter. It was a feeling of the now.

But not just of the now, although it definitely belonged to the now. It was a feeling of tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It was a feeling of endless tomorrows, endless sunrises over endless mountaintops. It was a feeling of scope. It was a feeling of hopeful perspective.

Sometimes sickness will make every day feel like a dull slog through fog as thick as pea soup (or peanut butter, if you prefer). Sometimes life in general will lead to that feeling, but perhaps that is the result of a sick life. In any case, it gets that way. The kind of grey trudge that you get if you've ever taken a walk on the Oregon coast during thick fog and you lose track of how long you've been walking. The kind where tomorrow is just another semi-solid chunk of grey sand in an unpredictable and uncaring grey world. That's where I was yesterday.

But, today. Today. Ah, today was something else. Today was Explosions in the Sky over my roommate's sound system, electric guitars rising to the sound of a heartbeat aimed for the center of a brilliant sunrise. Today was dancing with my Love in a warm kitchen until we're both slightly breathless, and not entirely from physical exertion. Today was a rise, a lift above the fog.

There was a saying in my hometown. When your head is above the clouds, the sun is always shining. Corny, yeah, but today I shot above the clouds. I got a glimpse of where we're going, and it's awesome. There's light up there. I see hope. I see home. I see family, friends. I see love.

At Thanksgiving this year, my little brother said he was thankful to be living now rather than "back then," whenever that is. He saw today as a fruit rapidly ripening for tomorrow's harvest. I thought that was very wise. My uncle disagreed with him, and made a point of disagreeing with him after dinner. He said something about how things were much safer/simpler/better back whenever. My brother stuck his ground. I thought that was very wise.

What's the point to all this? My point is thus: tomorrow is a good thing. Today is a good thing because it gets us to tomorrow. Yesterday was a good thing because it got us to today. Yes, yesterday is filled with painful memories, but it is also filled with planting. Today is filled with trudgery, but it is also filled with growth. Tomorrow is filled with uncertainty, but it is the time of the harvest.

I've been sick, but I'm getting better. I was better today than I was yesterday, and I can only expect the same from tomorrow.