Taking a moment

Taking a moment is something that I know I should do more often and that I long to do more often.

Realistically, I cannot very well justify why I don't do it more. Perhaps feeling like a perennial 'late developer' in life, I am constantly adrift in the fear of being 'left behind' or being 'pipped to the post.' The notion that other people are constantly outpacing me and that I am not able to catch up to them... but for what? What is it that they're outpacing me in or at?

Rationally, I do not know. Perhaps it comes from being the third in a group of four siblings - an inglorious status, particularly when you are the youngest of 3 girls and followed by the much-longed-for boy child. My older sisters cast quite the shadow professionally, but then again, it was a very different time for them when they went to university. One of them not only had no student loan, but even got a grant... what a notion these days.

I went for a walk at lunchtime and looked up into the sky at one point. A small break in the clouds had formed around the sun and it was asserting itself with surprising brightness. There was something strangely magnificent about that gleaming coin amidst the billows of grim grey and I felt a sense of wonder. I have long felt that I am a person in need of a religion... maybe I was a sun-worshipper all along.