For Now: April 26, 2023

My son came home from school one day in grade five, eager to show me a video he had watched in class. It was from Sesame Street, he told me sheepishly, since ten year olds should be far too old for these things. But the message, he said, was very inspiring. The video was called The Power of Yet. Through song, Janelle Monae and the Muppets demonstrate how this word can help children change their narrative and move toward a growth mindset. Instead of telling yourself that you can’t tie your shoes, Janelle explains…try saying instead that you can’t tie your shoes yet. You can’t spell your name yet. Yes, I agreed. There was power in Yet, this word that simultaneously acknowledges the present circumstance, and also declares a future goal that’s within reach, a matter only of time and effort. Yet was aspirational.

I feel comfortable using Yet in my life. I am a born goal-setter: a planner and a striver and a master of delayed gratification. I work at a job where each year, I am asked to submit a reflective page of writing that includes my one, five, and ten year goals. I am always looking to the future. And when I catastrophize, it’s usually about forever: I lament that I’ll feel this fatigued, or be dealing with mouthy teenagers, forever.

But almost everything is ephemeral through the long lens of time. Feelings and circumstances change continually; there isn’t much that lasts a month or a year, yet alone a lifetime (which, after all, is often the endpoint of my worries). This is the message that I need to hear these days.

For me, the magic words I need to repeat are the ones that lift the heavy burden of my own expectations: For Now. For Now belongs decidedly to this moment, without suggesting I should know what comes next. For Now gives me permission to experiment with something new and then, if I wish, to change my mind and move in a different direction. For now, I declare, I’m still on medical leave. I am here in this place, in this moment. And also I know that this moment is not my forever.