there is still tomorrow

It was suddenly spring just for a few hours on a February day. The sun was high, the ice was melting and the warmth was a welcome respite. It made you believe in spring again after the winter. I could watch the snow melt into small rivers on the pavement. I saw my friend walking up towards me with her arms open. Happy to see me and so we continued our walk together. 

The walk is so different depending on whether it is together or alone. A completely different story each one tells. On this faux spring today I was happy to be embraced. We walked for an hour, sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Watching the sun follow us around and feeling it on our backs.

And almost home I said, "I don't believe everything I write." And she said, "I disagree with you there. I never lie to the page." And then around the block I said, "I think you are right I never lie to the page. When I write I tell the truth as it is there in that moment. Just sometimes when I read it later, months or years later, I don't feel the same." And she agreed that could be true.

And I knew that it was.

Because we grow. Because what we believe today, we might not believe tomorrow. And that's ok. It does not mean we are lying to ourselves. It means we are evolving. Imagine if we didn't. I shudder to think that I might believe now what I believed in my thirties. I was so certain then. So sure. And in my certainty then, all I can see is naivety now.

And so what I am sure of today could change tomorrow because I gather new experiences and new information. And still I somehow can allow myself to be certain today. Still naive. Still circling my own thoughts and coming to conclusions that in all sureness will be challenged later on by my own self. 

And this is my prayer today. That I will know things then that I don't know now. That I will gather, if not so much wisdom, for one who is certain of her own wisdom is sure to be made a fool, but that I will gather story, and image, and insight, and love and I will bring them altogether in an offering to myself. And I will see what I once did not know. I will be open to a new story and beginning again. Amen.