I came in from walking the dogs on this oddly chilly May morning…
The TV was on one of the music channels.
“Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw just started as I sat down with my coffee.
I know the universe speaks to me. I know this because I have felt it in every way.
Deep in my heart when my loved ones look in my eyes.
Deep in my soul when the time for words has past.
I thought about how much of life we don’t control.
How much seems to be in everyone else’s hands but our own.
How much pain we withstand when we sit in real vulnerability that often feels messy and scary and unsure.
I think maybe the greatest gift we can give those around us is our ability to live today like it’s our last. To not let fear or doubt define who we are because if we died tomorrow, we see how much that fear didn’t serve us.
I drove past an empty carnival lot this morning, every ride and cotton candy booth and game, shoved in a small space like they had no way to breathe. I drove slowly and remembered what the space looked like just 12 hours before, jam-packed with people and wildly anxious kids… and moms holding hands and dads reaching in pockets and brothers drying tears. And today… it was nothing. No life, no sound, no single soul or breath around. The truth is, the carnival only breathes when there are people… kind of like us.
We don’t come into this life to live a scared, timid, lonely existence.
We come to this place as a soul having a bodily experience, to give love, share love and be love.
And then, when our time is over, we move on to some other carnival that needs to breathe our air.
I wonder today how many people are out there living half-lives… too afraid to be who they know they are inside.
Too afraid to give of themselves openly and truly to the world.
Too scared to go after the thing or the person or the idea that makes them feel alive.
And then, something crazy happens… like Christmas that comes on the same day every year… we wonder where the time went and how we didn’t ever give away our gifts.
Why we were left without feeling completely full. Why we didn’t fill the love buckets of the people we wanted to the most.
So today, I am going to live like I am dying…
Because in some way, every day, we all are.
And because when that day comes, I don’t want to regret a thing.
And that’s not morbid or scary or wrong to talk about…
I think it’s one of the most important conversations we can honestly have.
Unlike Christmas, I don’t know when my day will come, but I will be damn sure I am not left holding the gifts I was too afraid to give away.
