if i die young

i love this song... for a lot of reasons... its got that folksy thing i'm all about... maybe it's the whole 30 thing... seeing people die... seeing babies born... seeing my children struggle... figuring out what i believe this whole life is about...

i always kinda had this feeling i would die young... there was a part of me that didn't mind this... i figured i would experience a whole long list of stories enough for a few lives and die when i'm still trail blazing through them...

when i had kids i felt a little trapped... there's no way i can be crazy and live the life that will tempt the possibility of risk.  it's a different sort of risk.  it's my very soul out there living and walking and breathing with every danger facing them.   i can't protect them like i want to.  it's the ultimate loss of control and the ultimate blinding, searing, heartwrenching love.  i feel that in many ways i am much older than i am.  i feel that i have lived a lifetime already. 

in this entitled country we might not see the cycle in the same way.   i believe that most people can't have a world view unless they've seen multiple cultures and ranges of quality of life.  there is something about seeing life, death, pain, and joy in different cultures.  it makes us all the same somehow.

i've experienced everything that i knew-that i knew-that i knew come crashing down: twice.  i've loved with all my heart and been left crushed.  i've survived only because my children needed me.  i've come back.  i've loved again.  i've grasp the second vision for my life.  i'm just one of the billions of people in this world that have struggled and fought and lived and lost and lived again.  we are all the same.

every time i type someone's date of birth at work when i'm registering them as a patient, i think about that day.  i think about their mom pregnant with them.  i wonder if she was over due or early.  i wonder if she loved her baby; if she wanted them.  i wonder what sort of story they had.  if they are young i wonder if someone tucks them in at night... if they are old i think about what they must have been like when they thought they would never get old.  i think about that invincible feeling that young people have.  we are so stupid.  before long we are saying "it all goes so fast".  before long we are saying, "what did i do with my life?"  and then it's over... 

at what point in our lives do we think about what we want to be remembered for instead of what feels good right now?  what will our story be?  what will other's say our story was?

it's an honor to be here now in this little blip of time that is my lifetime.  i'm so happy to be placed where i am with the people that i have around me.  

what do we have but our own little corner of the world that we can do our best to make lighter and more beautiful?  what do we have other than choosing love?  what do we have other than giving our children the tools to make their own corner of the world more lovely after we're gone?