Wherever I am, I wish I was somewhere else.

Or how I don’t appreciate right now and live in the clouds of tomorrows.

Florence Toscano
Sep 1, 2018 · 3 min read
Photo by Ivo Silva on Unsplash

I remember being in high school, cruising through with my friends just waiting to get out of there. I wished my days away, hoping that all the tomorrows came faster because I thought whatever was out there was definitely better than what’s right then.

If I could go back in time, I would scold myself. I’d tell her to enjoy the moments you’ll never get back. But also, I would enjoy being back in time. The simpler days where my biggest problem was coming up with ways to skip the beep test and cross country. That, and trying to get that one cute boy to notice me. I wish those were still my problems.


Sour lemon. A friend of mine once described the death of Merlin from Kingsman: The Golden Circle as a sour lemon to the heart. And I think that’s the only way I can describe the feeling I get thinking back to simpler times.

My chest tightens up the way faces do with sour lemons as I remember the lunch times we spent laughing at anything and everything, the classes we spent doing nothing but making plans we’ll never follow through and everything good that ever happened in the years before we left. It’s the same feeling looking back at photos all smiles dressed up for Halloween, athletics day, on a mat in the backyard of the “mother house”.

Who would have known that the days I continually wished away were the good days?

Soft and plumped up with helium balloon dreams imagining only the best possibilities I had no idea that years from then, I’d be reminiscing back to the days of youth. Back to the times where I was carefree and naive before I was thrown out into the cold, grey reality.

If I have one regret, it’s that I didn’t appreciate those days more. But… I feel like… that’s a trend I’ve noticed with myself. I’m always wishing my days away only to regret ever having done so.

Maybe because I’m a student thinking that there’s a barrier separating the world of education from the “real world”. But as people have pointed out, this is the real world. This is it. This is my life whether I like it or not. And it’s real.

“It’s the oldest story in the world. One day you’re seventeen planning for someday and without you ever really noticing, someday was today. And that someday was yesterday. And this is your life.” — Nathan Scott: One Tree Hill

I never really appreciated the saying “live in the moment” convinced that whoever came up with it was some guy who had no idea how miserable life could get. But now I understand.

Live in the moment. Stop trying to be in tomorrow or in yesterday when you’re in today. There are so many things that today offers, so many possibilities. These are moments we can never go back to. Years from now, these are going to be the moments we go back to saying “remember when…?”.

Maybe today hurts. Or maybe it makes you angry. It’s not always rainbows and unicorns I know. But I’ve learnt that it’s important to feel now as it is. Confront those emotions. Be sad, angry, happy! We have to allow ourselves to feel, to be present! Because time is always on the move and before you know it, it’ll be gone.


I’d like to think I’ve gotten better at living in the moment, appreciating today. Really appreciating today. Some days I still wish I was back in my childhood, other times I wish I’m a 30-something who already has everything figured out. But most days I try to be in the present and I’m all the more better for it.

I’ve learnt that the days are fleeting, the people around are never still. Everything will inevitably change for better or worse and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. It’s made me realise just how precious each moment is.

I’ve spent way too long trying to be somewhere else when really, wherever you go, there you are.

Florence Toscano

Written by

A mess for the time being

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