It is 6:58pm on Friday night and I am sitting in my room reading a book… feet propped up on my little “desk” drawer and all of the sudden I hear the unit officer yell, “REC!”. Immediately my brain explodes with curiosity and confusion… “What??!! Did I just hear that correctly?? We are allowed to go outside for rec time tonight?? Holy Sh*t!”
I slowly walk down the hall and see the other guys peeking their heads out the door as well… not sure exactly how to respond. As I get closer to the lobby… there it is… an open door leading me out to the promise land of the yard. The outside world… with all of it’s fresh air, sights of the ocean and the illuminated shipping yard to the East and the hills of San Pedro to the west… and just like that… I felt the anxiety and stress that I have been carrying with me for the past month+ start to melt away…
Saturday morning I wake up and once again at 6am… I hear the unit officer yell… “Chow! Rec!”… and the COVID lockdown was officially over.
As I was sitting outside early Saturday morning… drinking my coffee and watching the ships get loaded across the water… I started thinking about how everything in life is really only a moment in time. Good or bad… no matter if we want time to stand still or speed up… we have no control over that because time doesn’t stop for anyone or anything and at the end of the day… whatever we are experiencing in this moment will soon be over and we will be moving on to the next experience.
So, as I have said numerous times… we are doing ourselves such an injustice if we don’t genuinely appreciate every one of our moments. Even if said moment seems to be one that you would rather not be in… appreciate it because it too shall pass…. and when it does… you will look back and it will simply seem like a blink…
Well… the sun is shining outside as I write this so I will end it there and head out to enjoy my heightened appreciation for fresh air… sunshine hitting my face and the ability to walk outside… feel like I am with my boys and my loved ones while I am out there and smile knowing that this moment… this exact “blink” of time is one of those bright moments even in a dark place.
Stay healthy… stay active. And smile with me because I am “free” man 😉