“If you are depressed, you live in the past. If you are anxious, you live in the future, if you are at peace, you live in the present.”
Over the past many years I have not lived in the present, until I was forced to.
Earlier this year – my husband and I were in the kitchen when he started shaking. At first I thought he was trying to be funny, but before I could make eye contact with him, he started falling. I grabbed him when his knees hit the ground. I turned to get my phone and call 911 as he became coherent.
He then passed out again, hitting his head on the counter.
As I screamed into the phone and worked on pulling his body by his legs so i could take his pulse and begin CPR – I can’t tell you where I was in my mind.
It was all so fast – but seemed like an eternity.
Our 5-year-old son came into the kitchen, screaming, asking what was happening. I will never forget the look in his eyes.
As I worked furiously to get my husband flat on his back, I thought I was fighting for his life. I thought this was it. See, he’d been sick for years – feeling dizzy, going to the ER, etc.
In these moments I thought it had all come to this. Our lives flashed before my eyes. The time I didn’t spend with him, the time I spent holding grudges, the time we could have had, but didn’t.
I never had to take his pulse or perform CPR. He came to before that.
But when the paramedics got to our house while he was connected to machines – I heard the noise I’d only heard in Grey’s anatomy. Beeeppp. My heart stopped – but only figuratively. What was happening? His heart had stopped – or paused – for 8 seconds. The paramedics were awesome… an injection of something helped get his pulse up and going.
He is okay. I didn’t lose him.
But one of the things that stuck with me through all of this — is three words I told him just about a week before this all happened.
After our kids had gone to sleep and as I was heading to bed… in our darkened hallway – I told him, “I’m not happy.”
I was happy with him. There were other parts of my life – outside of our relationship – that were not living up to my expectations.
Hindsight is 20/20. Now I realize having a few things in my life not measuring up does not mean everything is a loss.
I talk about unmet expectations in my first podcast episode. We’ll take a look at the three things you can do when you have unmet expectations.
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