I was late for work today.

I woke up this morning, still in pain from a cracked tooth. Still upset over the thought that, at Christmas, I have to drain my savings account to pay for a root canal and crown. Even though I have great dental coverage, it’s still gonna cost me a small fortune. I slept most of yesterday, doing nothing for the past 48 hours but eating warm, soft things and drinking from a straw.

I’m still very sad about Steve Wilson’s passing. I struggle every day with the loss of someone so tremendously central to my life. I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt right now because I’m realizing, after he’s gone, how much he meant to me and it saddens me that I never told him more often how important he was to me. I’m not even remotely religious, but I find myself on more than one occasion talking to him quietly in my office or in the car on the way to work. I don’t believe in God, but there’s a part of me that hopes he hears me.

The short of it is, I can feel myself slipping into a minor depression over the way things have gone over the last couple of weeks in my personal/professional life. It’s nothing major, but it saps the will. It makes things seem irrelevant. It drains motivation. It makes it easy to say, “I don’t care”, and to be honest, I kinda don’t care. I don’t really feel like socializing much this holiday season. I don’t really feel like confiding in anyone, or “talking about it” with anyone because quite honestly, it’s mine and mine alone. So in typical douchebag manly fashion, I wallow in self pity and eat peanut butter on triscuits until i’m nauseated, then lay on the sofa for hours playing video games just so I can escape my head for a few hours. Pretty lame, I know.

So last night, I decided to crawl into bed and not set an alarm. I didn’t care what time I woke up. It didn’t matter to me.

What mattered was spending the morning with the people who matter most, and actively trying to re-center my universe in a way that made me realize what’s important, and stop all that destructive chex-mix eating. I woke up after a good night’s sleep, took my time making my lunch for today, and made bacon and eggs. Real bacon, real eggs, and a nice hot cup of coffee.

Then I sat down with my wife and daughters and had breakfast… and just ate and talked. Talked about Christmas trees, school, a magazine article my wife read that she thought I’d find interesting, toys, the weather, and my daughter’s upcoming baptism on Sunday. I took my time eating and made sure I concentrated very hard on the zen of that moment. I wasn’t anywhere else. I wasn’t at work. I wasn’t having a conversation in my head about teeth. I wasn’t having silent conversations with friends. I was right there, at the table, talking to my daughter about Christmas trees.

And I was very aware that I was loving every minute of it.

So while external forces may try very hard to derail you, even at what you may think are “the worst possible times”. Even though it may be pretty much impossible to keep your mind in the game. Even though it may actually feel like “life” has reared up with a singular, evil purpose. It really isn’t all that bad. I’ve learned over the past couple of years the value of being in the moment, and when I take myself out of all those bad “places” and actually put myself in the here and now, I always seem to realize that what’s right in front of me is always better than anything I ever construct in my head.

Of course, bacon and eggs don’t hurt either.