It has often seemed to me that life, in all its curious arrangements, demands from us a kind of faith we scarcely understand, an expectation of things not yet seen, and a preparation for moments that have not yet arrived.
We are, whether we admit it or not, always living in advance. In advance of joy, which we imagine long before it finds us. In advance of sorrow, which we unknowingly prepare for in our solemn hours. In advance of becoming, as we gather, piece by piece, the fragments of a self we have not yet fully met. There is a peculiar tenderness in this.
For what is hope, if not a reaching forward? What is fear, if not a shadow cast by tomorrow upon the present day? We wake each morning and, without ceremony, begin arranging our lives for what may come, saving words we have not yet spoken, guarding hearts from wounds not yet given, and dreaming dreams that linger just beyond our grasp. And yet, how often are we mistaken.
We plan in advance for happiness, only to find it arrives in forms we did not recognize. We brace ourselves for despair, only to discover that we are far stronger than we had ever dared to believe. The future, in its defiance, refuses to be neatly contained by our expectations. Still, we persist.
We love in advance, offering pieces of ourselves to people who have not yet proven they will stay. We forgive in advance, softening the sharp edges of hurt before it fully settles within us. We even grieve in advance, mourning the loss of things we have not yet lost, as though our hearts are trying, in their own fragile way, to lessen the blow of what is yet to come. It is, perhaps, the most human of habits, to stand at the edge of the present and lean gently into the unknown.
And though it may leave us weary at times, this reaching forward, it is also what makes us remarkable. For to live in advance is to believe, however faintly, that something awaits us, something worth preparing for and hoping toward. So we continue, as we always have, not fully certain of what lies ahead, yet unwilling to stop imagining it.
Not fully prepared, yet always preparing. Living, in every sense of the word, in advance.
PS: This prompt came right in time for my Dickensian rhythm. I swore I was going to try the writing style after I read, yet again, Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. I don’t know if I tried with it but I hope to get better as I do admire his writing style and diction.