We make sense of our world by telling each other stories.—Carol Adrienne
Living at the speed of now.
He fell in love the first moment he laid eyes on her; on the second day after she moved into the house across the street from where he lived. At eleven, and every bit a boy up until that point; she awaken a sleeping desire that rivaled his worship of comic book heroes, and fishing, and the warm feeling he felt from his father’s shoulder hug.
Fast friends from the start, they fell easily into hanging out; climbing trees and chasing crayfish in the clear, deep waters of the creek behind his house. They shared grade school classes and neighborhood birthday parties, and the only awkward moment he could ever recall was a time, while hiking together in the woods outside of town, he glimpsed her peeing.
She was squatting—jeans shoved to the ground, arms hooked about her knees. She met his eyes as she slowly drew herself erect, her soft, cotton panties gently caressing her lithe, reddish pink thighs as she pulled them up to cover the tiny fluff of hair nested between her legs. Unabashed she simply smile as if to say “someday … someday I will be yours.”
She moved away at thirteen, but promised to write him every week, and made a pact that should they ever find themselves alone in life to seek the other out. But as the weeks turned into months; her letters never came and so he moved on, and grew up, and thought of her, then married, and moved away, and had children, and thought of her and came back and buried his father, and later divorced; always wondering what ever became of her, his first love.
And recalling their pact, he set about searching for her on MySpace and Facebook only to discover that she had died in an accident two weeks after moving away back when she was only thirteen.
So why am I telling you this story? I’m telling you this story, because life is not a promised gift. I’m telling you this because late one night while I was out running errands … singer Michael Jackson died and earlier that same week, actress and poster girl, Farrah Faucet … and hidden away in the daily paper, flanked by an advertisement announcing the latest pre-winter sale, was a small article about an eight year old girl who lost her two year old battle with cancer. Life is not a promise gift for any of us. It doesn’t matter how famous or how old or how rich or how unique we think we are.
Life is lived at the speed of now
Whatever we put off today may never happen, and whoever doesn’t know that we love them today may never know tomorrow. Life happens … but living is something all together different. It is an understanding and awareness that in any moment things can change for the better as well as for the worst, and that it is up to us to make the most of this particular time in place.
We live in fast and furious times, often bordered by despair and loss on one side—and hope and prosperity on the other—there are no guarantees. But providence has given us favor and implores us to live our best life now.
