Breathless

There are moments in life, moments we have all experienced to one degree or another, that take our breath away. How and when these instances occur are rarely foreseeable, almost never predictable, and always awe inspiring. Which makes the fact that they happen at all even more significant, more worthy of our consideration.

Maybe this breath-taking moment occurs when we are in the presence of that beachfront sunrise. Maybe it's in the mutual and unexpected glance from across the room, or the long anticipated contact of skin on skin. Maybe it's the cry of your firstborn nephew, as he leaves the womb and makes his entrance into the world and your life. Maybe it's the way the river flows or the waves crash. Maybe it's the way you witness how one person cares for another, or the way in which a memory can't quite be shaken.

Maybe it's the way someone walks into a room.

Or leaves a room.

Maybe it's a song, or the way a person stops, turns to you, and says, "this is amazing", and you can't help but agree. Maybe it's the conversation, or the space between two people. Maybe it's the way someone says you are welcome. You are wanted.

Maybe the breathtaking moment is in the realization that everything you've ever known or believed to be true could be questioned. Or maybe it's in the way your daughter can take initiative, or your son can be so giving. Or maybe it's in the way you suddenly realize that your parents are fallible. Maybe it's a moment of decidely undeserved grace.

Maybe it's a million different things, at a million different moments. You never can predict...

The rub is that in all of these moments there exists another possibility: that you can be suffocated, unable to catch back the rhythm of your breathing. You can choke and gasp for air. The rub is that in being so moved, that in being rendered so short of breath, you may be unable to ever be the same corpeal personage you were the minute before.

Because in every second that we stop breathing, in every instance that our breath is taken away, we in some way stop being who we were just a second ago.

We instead begin to change,. We are altered. we begin to become.

It is not easy, being suffocated by our breathless moments.

It's not easy to change, to become.

Whether we like it, want it, need it, or are ready for it, the fact and the hope is that every one of these instances brings us closer to who we really are, who we can and perhaps should be-our authentic selves. Every one of these moments allows us to move towards a truth. A truth we sometimes don't want to acknowledge. Can't acknowledge. Won't acknowledge.

But it is a truth nonetheless, this we know.

And that truth...well, it can take our breath away.

And give it back to us.