To the present,

We spend our youthful years fantasizing about what the future may hold for us. We envision ourselves fitting perfectly into a life that we’ve dreamt for our future selves and we wish that this perfect world will eventually become our reality. All the while we try to the live the present moments in fast forward to skip ahead to the time we may consider our “prime,” the times we envision telling our grandchildren about once we’re older and wiser.

Planning our futures is second nature to us. Ever since we were in kindergarten, we’ve been planning our weddings and making the most important decisions of adulthood, things like what type of dog will we have or whether we’ll live in the city or by the beach. We easily plan our lives out for the next 20 years while we’re oblivious to what we’re having for dinner in two hours.

Slow down. These are the best years of our lives. Be thankful for the moments we have with the people that mean the most to us. We laugh everyday to remind ourselves that, no matter what tomorrow may hold, we lived today to its absolute fullest. There is nothing wrong with preparing for the future but living in moment of today is just as important.

The present time has a funny way of speeding up as soon we start living our lives and not worrying about how to live our lives. Don’t waste a second pretending to be someone you’re not because that could have been a second we had chosen to smile because we wanted to and not because we had to.

As crazy as it may seem, we will all become older than we are today or tomorrow. We won’t always have the freedom to jump into our cars and drive nowhere to look at the stars. There will come a point in our lives when we’ll slowing start turning our music level down from “it can’t go any louder” to “let’s use our inside voices.” We’ll delight more in sleeping through the night rather than grabbing slushies at midnight and watching frozen clouds form off our breath. Our faded old band T-shirts and thrift store flannels will find their way into the “donate” boxes. We’ll become more concerned with our health and stop valuing dinners consisting of pickles and green tea nutritious. And we’ll be forced to grow up and leave all of these simple moments that go unnoticed behind.

Let us never blink again and stay young forever. But time doesn’t work that way either. So we must enjoy every second that we can while we have it. We must surround ourselves with the people that share our love of eating pickles and drinking slushies while yelling to us over the music to turn it up louder. Never take for granted the time we have, because it will slip through our fingers just as quickly as it came.

So here is to the present. Let it be a gift as well as a guide. Remind us to smile more because we want to and not because we have to. Remind us to look to the future but never stare in fear of missing a chance to ride through a summer night with the windows down. And lastly, remind us to soak up all the times we’re truly living so that when we are older and wiser, we will look back on our lives and cherish every second that we chose to live in the moment.

Sincerely,

The Wallflowers