Sometimes we find ourselves in moments that are infinite. For a few bursting seconds or minutes, the moment you’re in feels like eternity. That’s the thing about these moments, you so desperately wish for them not to end. It’s these moments that we hold near and dear, trying to keep them alive for as long as possible. Maybe it’s those moments you wander upon when everything is too much and you need an escape-route in your mind. Or maybe it’s those moments where there was a pivotal change in your life, your mind and your future. Whatever they may mean to you, these moments are infinite in the treasure-chest that is your mind.

For me, I have a few infinite moments. After my first year of studies, which meant moving over 1400km away from home, leaving my family and friends behind, there was a lot to take in. Sometimes these amazing changes in our lives cause a mix of feelings, and sometimes it can be extremely overwhelming. All I needed was some reflection, and it was in this reflection that I found one of my infinite moments. I was at my second home at the beach, and was in dire need of alone-time, so I took my fury friend for a walk. This was not out of the norm for me to do, but there was something extremely different about this walk. The air was breezy but not too cold, and the sun was out but it was not too warm – it was all just perfect. I let my dog loose, and she went on her own mission, running in and out of the ocean with the biggest expression of joy on her face. Something so small made her indescribably happy, and this made me happy too. The water was a clear turquoise, my favourite colour, and the waves crashing against my feet were a perfect temperature too. We walked back from the harbour and the clouds cascaded in the sky with the sun going down slowly. I was thinking a lot, about everything I expected for the year – about how some of those things happened as expected and how others didn’t. I recalled the high expectations that failed, and the low expectations that were surprisingly surpassed. But when I took myself out of my mind, I realised I was thinking away a beautiful moment. I stopped and soaked in the moment I was placed in. This moment was suddenly everything I have ever needed. It was sufficient. God had pressed pause in a moment in my life, and He let me experience every bit of it. This was grace, I was certain, allowing me to experience something simple yet so surreal, even when seconds previously I was not appreciating what He was giving me. I’m not quite sure if there is an English word, or a word in any language, for what I was feeling that afternoon. But I can say that I felt infinite.

The other infinite moments have felt the same, and I keep them all planted and growing in my mind. The time when, after moving to university, I flew home and hugged my parents for the first time in a few months. Then there was the day I got baptised, when I felt as clean and pure as I ever will after arising from the water. Or the time I finished my first dancing competition and I couldn’t believe the girl with two left feet had done so well. And I still recall the day I left my high school, and I felt an overwhelming sense of freedom and possibility for my future. Or the time when I had my dance society’s first end of year function, and I couldn’t believe the amount of love felt in the room and all the faces of joy as a result of pure fun. These are big moments that left me feeling infinite, but there are the small moments too. The small moments like when I sat in a car, with the windows down and the fresh ocean breeze, and all my friends were laughing. Or when that person with the exquisite eyes caught mine, and I could see that they are a sunshine child. The midnight conversations with my best friend, that indescribable sunset I saw that one December afternoon, my spurts of memory from that overseas trip that felt like a fairy-tale, or when I couldn’t stop laughing with my grandma in the mall.

My collection of infinite moments is infinite. We are given so many moments in our lives that are more significant than we can ever understand. These are the moments we need to hold onto, as a form of gratitude, and to remind ourselves that we can feel like that again. No matter what we feel today, it’s okay, because another infinite moment is around the corner. And until we arrive at that infinite moment, we can replay our other infinite moments over-and-over again.

By Mila Ottavini