Life Goes On While We Are Living It

Morning is here again, and I have been given another day in this life. Life goes on, and this morning I feel deeply grateful simply to be here for another day.

Not everyone is granted that.

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What will this day bring? What will I learn today? Which people will I meet?

I don’t know.

And perhaps that is part of life. When we wake up in the morning, we don’t really know what an ordinary day will contain.

Yesterday, something very ordinary happened that made me think about life, time, and the people who accompany us through different parts of it.

A Meeting at the Grocery Store

I have a cousin who lives here in the same community. We don’t spend time together anymore because she has chosen to distance herself from me.

That is her choice, and I accept it.

I cannot decide who wants to have me in their life. She has chosen not to have a close relationship with me today. I respect that, and I hope she has a good life.

Yesterday, I ran into her at the grocery store.

Of course I said hello. If she had asked me something, of course I would have answered. Her decision to keep her distance doesn’t mean that I have to do the same.

But the encounter stirred something in me.

When Her Visits Felt Like Christmas

When I was a child, she was someone I looked up to.

When she and her family were coming to visit us, it could almost feel like Christmas inside me. Not because I was going to receive any presents, but because of the anticipation.

I was happy.

I looked forward to seeing her and her brother.

I always thought she was so beautiful.

The child I was saw her very differently from the woman I am today. Back then, she somehow seemed larger than life. She was someone I admired and looked up to.

Yesterday, standing there in the grocery store, I saw an ordinary human being instead.

And I don’t mean ordinary in a negative way.

Quite the opposite.

I saw a person who has lived a life.

A person who has faced her own struggles, made her own choices, experienced things I may know nothing about, and grown older along the way.

Just like me.

My First Thought: How Old She Looks

My first thought when I saw her was actually:

Wow, she has really grown old.

Then another thought came almost immediately.

Perhaps she thought exactly the same thing when she saw me.

Wow, Carina has really grown old.

And why wouldn’t she?

Time hasn’t passed only for her.

It has passed for me too.

Her daughter must be over 40 by now. That thought alone tells me something about how many years have actually passed.

People I can still remember as children or young adults have long since grown up.

And those of us who were young back then?

Well, we have grown older too.

Two Families, Two Lives

In some ways, we have shared our lives, while at the same time living them in two different families.

I had my mother, my father, and my siblings.

She had her mother, her father, and her brother.

We were part of each other’s childhoods.

She grew up surrounded by all kinds of animals. We had animals too, although in our home it was mainly a dog.

As an adult, I think I have become more of a cat person.

We haven’t had a huge number of animals during my adult life, mostly the kinds of pets that become part of family life while children are growing up. A few birds, some fish, and several cats over the years.

As far as I know, animals have remained a bigger part of her life. Horses and dogs have been there, at least in the past.

And in our home, we have our little cat.

My husband’s baby.

Small details, perhaps, but those small details are also what our lives are made of.

Our lives began fairly close to each other, and then gradually continued in different directions.

From Christmas Excitement to a Hello in the Grocery Store

I think this is what feels strangest to me.

Here is someone who has been part of my world for almost as long as I can remember. Someone whose visits could feel like Christmas when I was a child. Someone I admired and looked up to.

And then one day, we are two older women meeting in a grocery store.

I say hello.

She says hello.

And then we continue in different directions.

It feels strange when I think about it.

Not because I believe it has to be different. Nor because I think I need to change something another person has chosen.

People are allowed to decide whom they want close to them.

But isn’t it strange what an entire lifetime can do to relationships?

Once, her visits could fill the child in me with excitement.

Now we meet between the shelves in a grocery store and say hello.

Then life continues.

Hers in one direction.

Mine in another.

Perhaps that is why such a small encounter stayed with me.

Somewhere between the little girl eagerly waiting for her cousins to arrive and the woman standing in that grocery store yesterday, an entire life has passed.

My life.

Her life.

And the strange thing is that we don’t have to do anything at all for time to pass.

It does that all by itself.

We buy groceries. Cook dinner. Do the laundry. Work. Take care of children. Worry. Laugh. Argue. Make up. Plan next week and think about things that seem incredibly important at the time.

Meanwhile, a day passes.

Then a week.

A year.

Ten years.

And suddenly you are standing in a grocery store, seeing the passing of time in someone else’s face.

Only to realize a second later that she can probably see that same passing of time in yours.

Perhaps it is precisely these small encounters that remind us that life goes on while we are living it.

We Take Tomorrow for Granted

We say things so easily:

See you tomorrow.

I’ll do it next week.

I’ll have time for that later.

And most of the time, we do.

But none of us has actually been promised all those days we so casually place in front of us.

That doesn’t mean I want to walk around being afraid that life will end.

Quite the opposite.

I want to remember that life is happening.

Right now.

It doesn’t have to be an amazing day. I don’t have to accomplish something extraordinary for the day to count.

Maybe I’ll learn something new today.

Maybe I’ll meet someone.

Maybe someone will make me think.

Maybe it will simply be an ordinary day.

But ordinary days are life too. Because life goes on while we are living it, even on the days when nothing particularly special seems to happen.

Thank You for Another Day

Perhaps yesterday’s encounter in the grocery store was simply a small reminder.

Not about what no longer exists between my cousin and me, but about everything that once did.

And about time.

Two people who had been part of each other’s lives since childhood grew older.

They lived their own lives.

The years passed.

And one day, they met again between the shelves of a grocery store and said hello.

Then they continued on their separate ways.

And today, I woke up to another morning.

I was given another day in this life.

For that, I am grateful.

So good morning, life.

Let’s see what you have in store for me today.

Between the Lines

Between the lines, perhaps this post isn’t really about my cousin at all.

It is about time.

It is about how life goes on while we are living it, and how sometimes it takes an unexpected encounter for us to truly notice.

It is about how people can be incredibly important during one part of our lives and almost strangers during another.

It is about accepting that relationships change without having to rewrite history or pretend that what was once beautiful no longer mattered.

But there is something else here too.

The child in me saw a beautiful cousin whom she admired.

The woman I am today sees another woman who has lived a life filled with happiness, difficulties, choices, and challenges.

Just like me.

Perhaps that is part of growing older.

We stop seeing people as those almost magical figures from our childhood and begin to see the human being behind them.

And somewhere along the way, perhaps we need to do the same with ourselves.

I am not the same little girl who stood waiting for her cousins to arrive.

She is still part of my story, but I have lived an entire life since then.

And I am still living.

Perhaps that is the most important thing between all these lines.

I am still right here, in the middle of life, while it is happening.

What Do You Think?

Is there someone from your childhood who once meant a great deal to you, but whom you barely know today?

Have you ever met someone after many years and suddenly become aware of just how much time has passed?

And what happens inside you when you realize that you, too, are changing and growing older while everyday life simply continues?

Perhaps we sometimes need to be reminded that life isn’t only what is going to happen later.

It is also this perfectly ordinary day.

The one we woke up to this morning.

Today’s Thought

Carina Ikonen Nilsson – writer and author

“Life doesn’t wait until we find the time to live it. It is happening while we are busy with everything else.”
– Carina Ikonen Nilsson

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