Now is not forever
Objects in motion stay in motion. I would repeat that to myself last year when I went out for my Couch to 5K runs in my local track. London’s October wasn’t rainy or particularly cold yet but I could swear I saw my breath as I huffed and puffed.
I had Steve Cram’s voice assuring me that I was ‘looking good, feeling good’. The burn in my calves didn’t feel good but I knew my laps would look gorgeous on Strava. When Steve went quiet, Girl Talk’s Feed The Animals blasted in my ears. Objects in motion stay in motion, I repeated, to lead my body to believe that this was my eternal state now.
I wanted a chug of water, wanted the warm-up stretches I’d skipped. But if I stopped for a moment, I wouldn’t be able to start again. Objects in motion stay in motion and objects at rest stay at rest.
This logic runs my life. It repeats itself at my desk, with my planner, on the bus. Stop the motions and I’d have to sit still and accept myself as I am.
In the final weeks of my programme, running for a consistent thirty minutes, I hit a trance. I no longer felt my legs. I was moving faster than ever, yet felt like I was suspended in place. I couldn’t dwell on it for too long or my legs would buckle.
I’m at a strange place in life that feels like this. Moving, trying, yet feeling perfectly still. I am learning that the uncertainty of where the motion will take me feels like its own standstill.
Clincial psychologist Meg Jay put it nicely: “Older adults often look at twenty-somethings and they think ‘Oh they don’t have partners or houses or mortgages or kids, what do they have to feel so stressed out about?’ but… it’s stressful not to have those things and, even more importantly, not to know if you ever will.”
Objects in motion stay in motion and objects at rest stay at rest. But what if you’re not sure if you’re moving at the right speed or moving in the right direction?
Stillness is its own motion. Even when you’re not holding the ukulele, your fingers bend into chord shapes. Even when you’re not speaking French, your tongue rolls letters. Even when you’re off the track, your legs remember the burn.
Remember where you were yesterday. Keep on keeping on. This is the long now.