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Momento Vivere: Remember to Live:  ©Iris J. Arenson-Fuller, PCC, CPC

Remember to live!  Momento vivere!   This one seems like a no-brainer, but is it?

Tomorrow is my birthday and since I am “old”, I want to celebrate my birthday by giving you the gift of a bit of advice. I am hoping that with the title of “old”,  I have acquired a pinch of wisdom.  I know my advice is unsolicited, but I do hope you will listen anyway, now that I am a bona fide “old person”, or at least, so my little granddaughter informs me. Yesterday she was showing me some dance moves and admonished me not to try them. “Bubbie (That’s me!), you shouldn’t do this because I’m very flexible, but you’re old, so you might get hurt. How many from a hundred are you, anyway?”

I know some of us get pretty tired of being told to “be in the moment”, to pay attention to the small things as we go about our business, and to practice gratitude.  When the moment is a beautiful sunset, a hug from a child, a word of strong praise from a client, or a gift from an admirer, it’s easy to stay in that moment and to truly appreciate it.

It’s more of a challenge when the moment is filled with the sound of a screaming baby at 3 AM, the dread we get on opening an overdue bill from the doctor’s office, or  a trip to the Alzheimer’s Assisted Living to visit a loved one. When we have a work deadline hanging over our heads,sometimes all we can think of is plodding through it and getting it done.

Often our daily lives are packed with our  to-do lists. We run from one appointment to the next, from one household or work chore to the next. We don’t stop to breathe, to admire, to feel, to enjoy, and to express gratitude. We think there’s plenty of time to do that “later” but we are too busy now just surviving.

We keep setting aside things we once wanted to do, or dreams that still nag at our hearts. We make it a point to assign importance to just about everything but our own dreams. We forget about who we are, or who we once wanted to be.  We are too efficient, or maybe too important or successful in business, to waste time and energy contemplating dreams whose embers have been snuffed out by the rigors and demands of our families and job responsibilities.

So we set aside truly living, and we exist from day to day. We pile up possessions that often we don’t even look at or use, but we convince ourselves we are happy because we own them.  The mountain of unfulfilled dreams (if we even allow ourselves the time to dream) gets higher and higher all the time. We pay lip service to having gratitude, but mostly we don’t think about it.

However, in  this kind of frantic, unmindful survival mode, we become machines. Our pleasure centers become dull. Our compassion for ourselves and for others diminishes, because we are focused on life as a burden, or an assignment. We forget how to enjoy, and gratitude is the last thing on our  minds.

Since we are all mortal, the other thing we need to remember, though,  is momento mori. Remember death, or remember that you must die. As much as we know this, many of us still don’t have enough resolve, or enough courage to get off those daily treadmills, and to start living our dreams, paying attention to the small, but important moments that, when strung together, will be the memories we review on their deathbeds. The moments we pay attention to now, the ones that remind us of the things and people for which and whom we need to be grateful, are also part of the memories we are making with the loved ones who will be left in this world after we are gone.

My own favorite prayer is the Hebrew Shehecheyanu. I am not a religious person, and I don’t necessarily recite this on the traditional occasions or holidays, but just saying the words enhances my own sense of gratitude and reminds me of things I sometimes forget. With this prayer, we praise our Higher Power who has granted us life, has sustained us and permitted us to reach this occasion or season of life. For many years, after the loss of my first husband , our home, and then the loss of many other loved ones, I had this prayer taped to the wall beside my bed, so that I would see it each morning when I awoke.   I don’t know what your own beliefs happen to be. You can create your own version of this, whether it’s a mantra that helps you notice and appreciate, or an acknowledgement of whatever it is you believe in your own way.

The important thing is to live your true life now, please, to pay attention to your dreams, and to not have to  see your life and dreams fly away, their beauty and power only half-acknowledged and half-used.

My birthday wish is for you.   Momento vivere!

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Iris Arenson-Fuller, PCC, ACC helps clients with  tough life changes, loss and trauma, when they want to find a new normal, and new ways of being happy in the world, regardless of the pain of the past. She is a Life Reinvention, Grief and Women’s Confidence Coach.

She also works with the Adoption Community on issues of adoption loss (Adoptees, Birth Parents, Adoptive Parents)

Iris has been a writer/poet all of her life. She is also a mother,  (adoptive and biological) grandmother and certified professional coach, and founded and ran a licensed adoption agency for about 30 years.

Iris’s work  has appeared in a variety of print and on line publications

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Iris can be reached at 860-242-5941 to discuss how she can help you.

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