Why Is It Never Enough?

I was with a friend last week, curled up on the coach, watching Downton Abbey. It was one of those idyllic moments when everything was right with the world.  And into the middle of the quiet a sudden thought trampled in on hobnail boots..."This is going to be over soon. You are going to really miss this when you get back home."

Little mind that I still had several days left with my friend much less that Downton Abbey still had 45 minutes of show.  All I could think of was that it was all ending too soon. It wasn't going to last long enough.

Have you ever experienced that feeling? You go on vacation and immediately start counting the days until you have to return home? Or you are, say having a massage and no sooner has the oil hit your back that you think, "This won't last long enough." Or you put your spoon in a bowl of ice cream and wonder how much is left in the carton.

Nothing ever seems long enough for me. Certainly not the time spent with friends or moments of pleasure. Always always looming before me is the realization that as soon as something begins, it begins to end.

I'm not sure if it was the loss of my mother combined with several other major losses, including a huge financial setback, that has made me even more sensitive to the beginning/ending nature of things, but more than any other time in my life, I find myself caught in a painful anguish of wanting things to last but knowing that they will not. Of knowing that for every moment of warmth, there is a cold breeze coming.  Of having every happy moment penetrated by the knowledge that the end is coming.

I think that it all comes down to feeling insecure, of feeling that it's a rough and dangerous future out there. Certainly all that transpired in the past year has added to that feeling and I'm having a hard time remembering how it feels to be secure in the present and hopeful for the future. 

I catch myself saying, "If I can just get my job situation in a better place. If the relationship details will just work out. If I can just figure out what the next steps are...then..."  Then what?

Then what.