I can remember so many moments in my life that I only recognized when I looked back at them. After the emotions passed, the storm subsided, the gravity was felt and my legs were steady, standing on firm ground. Moments I'd realize I would never experience again; where I saw how oblivious I was to something that seems so obvious in retrospect... moments I'd want to go back to and hold forever if I could.

Not regrets, necessarily... just recognition. They used to feel like loss; like a failure on my part. Like I somehow was 'not enough' because I didn't happen to have the experience or insight or awareness to see what was happening in the moment. That's no surprise, now, looking back... and yes, I see the irony in that statement.

The truth is that I couldn't see it because I wasn't ready to. I wasn't present enough to notice them in the moment; not as a failure, but as a condition of all of my experience to that point. My understanding, my perspective, the particular circumstances and the conditioning and all the other influences I was under. I still am, in a lot of ways - but something shifted.

I've been waiting to arrive at this promised land where I stopped hating myself, stopped regretting every fucking action I took, stopped seeing how it was wrong - how I was wrong - no matter what I did. I've tasted that so many times, in so many 'almost' moments, only for it to slip away. It felt unfair. I felt like a victim. I hated myself for it. I perpetuated the cycle without realizing I was doing so.

Somehow... we arrived. Was it tonight? Last week? I don't know. But here, sitting by the fire, reflecting on how far we've come and how my perspective has changed, not looking back at the past and remaining stuck, facing behind me... but seeing it in my rear view mirror, while still looking forward, and being fully present here and now... I realize that this is arrival. Arriving in this moment, without grasping for something behind or in front of me. That's the whole fucking point.

Standing here, now, I'm not in the ash left behind by the fire that's already passed by, grieving what was burnt. I'm not standing in the dry brush, watching the firestorm approach, paralyzed by fear of getting burned. I'm just... here, standing in the truth, burning. The light isn't blinding; the heat isn't paralyzing; it's just... clear. Steady. The light is illuminating what I couldn't see from anywhere but here; the heat is keeping this tiny space I'm holding warm enough for me to stay here and not run away.

And, for the first time - in a long time, if not ever, I can just stand here and look around and just accept being exactly where I am. I can see the past clearly; not as something to run from or chase, but the way a flea on a thread can look back at the bridge it just walked along to get to where it is. I can look forward, not to see the other end of the thread, but to be okay with watching it dissolve into the fog of potential and uncertainty - and just accept that as the truth of my present reality.

I've been here before; I know what it feels like to be here. The difference, this time, is that threshold that's been crossed - wherever it was, exactly. Stopped running, chasing, fighting, cowering, denying... stopped lying to myself; stopped trying to see something that wasn't there, and now I can see what's actually there - and somehow that's the most validating thing I've ever experienced.

Because standing here, seeing everything this clearly... I realize: I was right all along. Not out of pride; this isn't an ego thing. Not as a statement about how I'm somehow better or more enlightened or whatever. It's the realization that not trusting myself, not listening to my intuition, was never me. It was the result of standing outside of myself; outside of the present moment, wondering why I felt distance from the truth.

Because the truth is only here and now; from whatever vantage point we have, looking in whatever direction we look, it only exists in this moment. Standing here long enough to realize that... the storm settles. Not because it doesn't exist - but because I'm standing here, in the eye of it, where I always am and always have been, and that realization is the one that does more than any restrictions, force, begging or pleading or bargaining with myself or with reality could ever do.

That clarity is the simplest truth there is; and it's both as reassuring and calming as floating on a still, glass-like lake under a clear, starry sky with no breeze, no movement - just presence; and as heavy as the weight of a dying star sinking into a gravity well, pulling everything around it towards its center.

I'm standing in that center; the still point that I've walked through so many times while looking for what I couldn't find, and here - all the weight of all the matter in existence can't pull me away... because in this singular moment in time - this ever-present moment - there is no movement... no pull of gravity... no force. Just... this. Being. Here.

Whatever happens, whatever floats by, whatever tempts me out of this little circle of complete awareness and presence that feels like the home I forgot existed and have been searching for my entire life, has no hold on anything except what's outside of the circle. As long as I'm here, it can threaten, scream, flail its arms around and dare me to step into the hurricane spinning around me. But here... this is arrival. This is truth. This is where anything and everything important exists, and here, in this moment, is where I find Us.

Whatever persona... whatever story... whatever fires are burning beyond this little space we share, we are free here. The boundaries of the circle around this moment dissolve, and nothing else matters. And in the next moment? We'll still be here, however we are, wherever we are.

All it requires of us to stay here is the willingness to do so, the intention to be present, and the stillness and awareness that allows us to see that... here, now... we are here. Here, and now... we have arrived. Always.

Always.