I’m going to take a different approach to my entry today, so please bear with me…

The past couple of months, I have been spending my nights outside in my front yard, sitting in a lawn chair, staring up at the night sky…most of the time accompanied by a beverage or two.  As I look into the sky, every single time all I can think about is how damn incredible it is.  Not just the fact that I am sitting there, because yeah that’s pretty amazing itself and something I’ll get to in a few minutes, but the sky and the stars and everything is absolutely beautiful.   Even with as blessed I am to be here today, I still have things in my life which I wish were better…but when I sit out there laying back in that chair, taking a big deep breath of fresh air, everything else just seems to fade off, and that’s when I truly realize at how lucky I am to be here today.

I think it’s something that only a small percentage of people really understand.  I kind of wish people would appreciate that sort of thing more.  I think about it all of the time, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever really written about it before, but I think it needed addressing.  Some of it is just the fact that most of us are able to live our lives without having to worry much about our health.  And maybe that’s the connection, we always think we are going to be here in 100% health the next day, so we take the everyday routine things that we see and do for granted.  When the reality of it is, is that no one is guaranteed anything.  Before you know it, you’re life could go in a completely different direction. All of a sudden, you find yourself wishing that maybe you had lived those “healthy” years differently.  But by that time, it’s already too late and all you have to work with is the present.   We all have the ability to live our lives to our fullest potential.  Whether we choose to do that or not is purely up to us.

This might sound somewhat depressing, but I am in that mood where I feel like writing whatever the heck is on my mind…and this just happens to be there at the moment, so here it goes.   There have been MANY times where I envision a world without me being there anymore.  And every time I do, the main thing I think about is all of you.   I ask myself all sorts of questions.  If I had one more chance, just one more chance, to say one thing to each of the people that I’ve met throughout my lifetime, what would I say?   Then I start thinking about all of the people that are on that list.   What would they say back?  I run through the list trying to remember as far back as I can.  I usually begin with trying to remember all of the friends, young and old, that I’ve made throughout the course of my life.  After that, I focus more on the friends and relatives that have been there through it all.  And I always wrap it up with my family.  What would I say to my dad and mom?  My sister?  My brothers?!  One of the only things that I can think of, is letting you know how much I love all of you and thanking you for the wonderful life you had given me.   I hope when my time comes, whenever that time is, that I am ready to go.  Will I ever be?  I guess I don’t know the answer to that one either.  One thing I do know, is that with what time I have, I can do my best to fulfill my life so that when that end does come, I’ll know that I did everything I could to be the happiest person that I could be.

I wake up each and every day, and the first thing that hits me right in the face, is just the fact that I am here.  Every day that I have on this planet is a gift.  One of the reasons why I am writing this is because there have been a lot of people, over the past 5 years or so, that have confronted me and asked me how I felt about “life.”  And every time, I wish I had a couple of hours to talk to that person.  It’s not an answer that I can give them in 30 seconds or less.   Just last week, someone asked me that question about how I felt about life, and all I said was that I just went for a walk around my neighborhood, and it was absolutely incredible.  I wish I could sell that feeling in a bottle.

In summary, I guess what I am trying to say, is that I wish everyone who reads this gives their best effort to live their life to the fullest.  Yeah I know I am the king of clichés when I write sometimes…But try to appreciate all aspects of life.   Look past that invisible barrier that we have all built up over the course of our lives shielding our feelings and emotions from the simple things that used to give us such great pleasure when we were 5-10 years old.  And I know I’ve said this a million times, but don’t sweat the small stuff.  That shit really doesn’t matter.   Get over it!

I’ll end this one with a quote from a children’s movie I saw recently called Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.

“Life is an occasion.  Rise to it.”  ~Dustin Hoffman

-Eric