There is something fascinating about the way life changes, and with it, the meaning of the very same moments.

Once... not long ago...  I was preparing a birthday dinner filled with anticipation for the future. Every dish, every detail felt like part of a dream that seemed so close I could almost touch it. I danced around the kitchen to the music, sang along to my favorite songs, laughed for no particular reason, and felt genuinely happy as a woman. An entire life stretched out before me...  not yet lived, yet already vivid in my imagination. At that table there was not only the present moment, but also the hope that one day everything would become fully real, fully open, fully ours. Somewhere deep inside, I believed that feeling would last forever.

This year, I was preparing a birthday dinner once again. But this time my daughters were beside me. We chopped vegetables, debated recipes, turned up the music, laughed at little things, and kept getting distracted by conversation. The songs were playing again. I was dancing again between the stove and the countertop. Only now, it was my children laughing beside me.

And suddenly I realized that happiness had never actually left. Yes, life had changed. Dreams had changed. Some visions of the future that once felt unquestionable had quietly disappeared. Yet the ability to feel joy, love, and gratitude for a moment remained exactly where it had always been.. It is different though... 

As I grow older, I find myself noticing something else as well. There was a time when I thought closeness lived in feelings, promises, and dreams about the future. Now I see it differently. Real closeness lives in the willingness to share a life in present moment. To tell someone about the roads you have walked, the experiences that transformed you, the thoughts that keep you awake at night, the moments that shook your heart. Genuine connection is created when stories continue to flow between people, when someone wants to open the door to their inner world rather than simply remind you that they exist... and if there is nothing to say... nothing to even share... well then...  Perhaps that is why that evening long ago in the kitchen felt so full of life. We were not simply preparing dinner. We were sharing stories. Laughing at memories. Talking about what was happening in our hearts. We were truly present with one another... at that moment we were building future... well, I was... and I was the only one who was building it maybe... 

For many years, I believed happiness lived in the fulfillment of a dream. These days, I find it more often in what is already here. In my daughters' voices filling the kitchen. In the cheerful chaos before dinner. In the music playing from a speaker. In the beautiful moment when your grown children unexpectedly become your friends... 

Once, happiness lived in tomorrow. Now it often arrives without any promises about the future. It simply sits beside me at the table, smiling through familiar faces, reminding me that life does not need to follow my plans in order to be beautiful.

And perhaps there is a special kind of wisdom in that. Cherish what is... tomorrow is never guaranteed... ❤️ And now I really cherish what I had in the past... and what I am having now too...