Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Now is all we have..

Life teaches us many lessons from the time we come into this world to the very last day we breath.  With all the lessons comes great knowledge, experience, regret, foresight, patience and most of all understanding.  Some lessons are harder to learn and therefore we face them a few more times than we really want to...

If I've learned anything from the years that are behind me now, is that life.. with all it's beauty and joy can also be a very ugly and painful thing.  I've learned that nothing lasts, that all the good and the bad eventually dwindle away and end..  Pure joy and utter pain don't necessarily ever leave but perhaps we just get used to it and become numb as we grow older, and with each experience and lesson we perhaps get tougher, more resilient.. and in the process loose our childish enthusiasm, imagination and curiosity.  We accept things with more ease, stop fighting with our inner demons and even take the joyous experiences with a slight smile rather than a hearty laugh..

In my case... we went from having a comfortable, warm and fuzzy life to a harsh, treacherous, painful existence, surrounded by pain and grief.  Surviving days with tears and hardship while barely making it through nights with a cold bed, wet pillows and a longing for warmth..  But as time goes by, and even though the pain is still the same... we've gotten used to it, have built an immunity to grief, and are a bit more numb to everything that comes with life..  I see it in my boys and I feel it deep inside of me..

Lessons learned?? Still figuring that part out, but the most important lesson I've learned from all this is, like I said.. nothing last forever, happiness can be lost at a moments time, and sadness eventually leaves as well... So at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will say this... all we have left is NOW!  Whatever situation we may find ourselves in, that is all we have, so we may as well laugh whole hearted as well as cry from deep within.  This very moment will never repeat, and the joy or pain we feel right now is the very essence of being human, of living our lives.. however long that may be.  I think by really submerging ourselves deep into this moment we can say that we are human and at the end of our journey, as we look back at all the miles we've walked... we can say that we've lived... and learned... and experienced all that this life had in store for us..

And that is a satisfying feeling...