Back To Reality

Becoming a mother changed my perspective on life. It's definitely made me less selfish, and more paranoid. I worry all the time, and I now understand why every time Granny heard an ambulance she would call and ask if we were okay. Too often do we get bogged down in the "routine" of every day life: waking up, kids to school, go to work, get home, sleep, do it all over again. Why does it take a tragedy to bring us back to reality? Life is short, and we should act like it.

• Get right with God.
• Never take life for granted.
• Live each day to its fullest.
• Those stupid arguments? Don't even start them.
• Those unsaid "I love you's?" Say them.

You just never know which day is going to be your last. Death is a part of life and we all know that - but we never realize just how quickly someone can be taken from this world. We may never know why, but you CAN live without regrets and you CAN find comfort that you will see your loved ones again someday.

On Saturday morning, "A beautiful little boy lost his father, parents lost a son, siblings lost a brother, a sweet baby girl lost her uncle, many lost a great friend, the world lost a wonderful person, and Heaven gained one." There are so many heavy hearts, Kaine. Mine is one of them.

life in a box.

I've been told that it is a blessing to be able to put things into a box like I do. Past relationships, hardships, trials, tribulations. Every time I go through a rough time, or am disappointed my someone in my life, I take them and all their memories and put them away. Deep, deep, deep, into the back of my mind they go.

That would be great, but if you know me you know that I am a lover. Like I've said before, I love... and when I do, I love hard. When I put memories, good and bad, away in the storage building of my mind, I am often tempted to peek inside; this happens months, even years down the road. So, I guess my talent is my curse. Because once the memories are stored, the boxes become Pandora's boxes, and I am forbidden to open them ever again.

My granny is gone. She passed away in February after years and years of suffering. She was a brilliant and giving woman, who always put her grandchildren (Autumn & myself) before anything else in this world. My sister was with her almost every day, even the night that she died.

I never sat by my grandmother's side. I never did word searches, watched Days of Our Lives. Nothing. I was always "unable to come" or "it just wasn't a good day for me." Initially this was because of my inability to go into a hospital without getting claustrophobic. It gradually turned into the fact that I just didn't want to see her looking sick. I wanted to remember MY granny, not the one the hospital had made. I always took for granted that she would just be here day after day. The day I knew that she was gone, the things that were so important to me seemed so trivial. I was sick and ashamed of myself.

Material things, mean nothing. You realize that nothing in life is permanent, that the word permanent should not be a word at all. The only truth is change.

I had a really smart friend once. She, actually, I believe, is my friend "soul mate." You have this one friend who just makes sense, who matches everything you believe. This friend was my intellectual other half, we wrote essays that sounded the exact same, we had the same views on life, and we were both stuck in the same boring town. And we still are. But she did this thing I'll never forget. She understood me, and loved me.

I guess the best we can do is try. Try to live, try to make sense of things, try to realize the importance of other people, and try to distinguish the difference between living and planning on starting to live. We cannot cling to things that we think will last, because nothing lasts in a physical state. We can however, cling to things that will last in our memories and in our hearts.