Since I have been in DC, I have reconnected with a few friends... some from long ago (ex- I haven't seen them since 3rd grade), others more recent friends who I lost touch with once they graduated from Auburn. But what I have learned, is that it never hurts to reach out again, no matter how much time has gone by. Those people that you form real friendships with, will be happy to pick up where time left off. It is a wonderful thing.

To reconnect is to win the battle against time. To stand the test of it, I guess you could say. Time so often doesn't play us a fair hand. Time ages us. It can often harden us. It's unpredictable. But, when we reconnect, we choose to look past the gaps that time has placed in our lives. And, against the odds, we win against time.

It's an exciting prospect when I think about crossing paths again with someone from long ago- there is something to be said about the friends that you can just pick up where you left off. I think those friends from long ago give us a tiny blast into the past- a nostalgic look into where we have come from. And often, they show us how far we have really come. Reconnecting shows us that even though time changes things, and even the way we think, at the core of it all the same person is still there after all the years. How lucky we are to be able to reconnect even when life has taken us years apart.

We should pick up the pieces more often.

 

If I could give anyone advice today, it would be to not wait on forever.  Forever is never a guarantee.  It's a vague hope that things never change.  It is a false promise that time waits and is on our side.   It's the excuse to push back what we want to do until tomorrow, because we have an eternity to live our life.

But everyone's forever is different, and there is no way to measure what forever might mean. Your forever can end in a second, with no warning, with no reason, in any season of your life.

So listen to your heart today, every minute of your life.  Chase your dreams and follow the whispers that you hear inside you.  Don't wait on tomorrow and certainly don't wait on forever.  Time is certainly not our friend, and certainly not on our side. Life is too precious, and the hours too valuable, to not live your life.    

So don't wait on forever.  Because forever isn't true.  Forever is a vague attempt to make us believe that time will always remain to do what we want to do

"What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger. We had many families over time. Our family of origin, the family we created, and the groups you moved through while all of this was happening: friends, lovers, sometimes even strangers. None of them perfect, and we couldn't expect them to be. You can't make any one person your world. The trick was to take what each could give you and build your world from it." 

— Sarah Dessen

Life is strange.  Really, right now, that is a nice way for me to put it. It throws us for loop holes that we can't predict, turns our world up side down, and in one instant everything can change.  Mostly, it seems, it is out of our control.  Whether it be good or bad, this strangeness leaves me with questions that will never be answered for me.  They are universal questions that everyone asks at some point in their life, I imagine.    Questions of good and evil, of human kindness, the human spirit, the footprints that we live in life, obstacles, tragedies, etc.  I'm not pretending to be a scholarly figure, but as each day goes on in my life, I am faced with more and more situations that truly make me sit back and think "why".  

Why will never be answered.   It is a question that shouldn't be asked.  There is no reason for the why, as for the reason why tragedies affect our lives.   I can sit here all night and run around in my head looking for reasons, but they will never be answered. It's like an endless space that can't be filled.  A void that will always remain.

When I find myself at this point in my life where I am feeling beat down from all of the strangeness in life, I am reminded of one of my favorite songs from John Butler Trio.

As strange as it may be, life isn't always what it seems.  Sometimes good presents come in bad wrapping.

So I am hoping as I continue on in this journey called life, that most of the bad wrapping is just a disguise.  That behind the wrapping is a present that somehow enriches my life and those around me.  It's a struggle I will always have in life.  Finding the good in bad things that happen .  Finding the joy in grief.  Finding the strength in sorrow.  It seems that these things should never go hand in hand, but ultimately they have to to carry on.  So I hope that when I am faced with points in my life of strangeness that I just keep unwrapping it all.  And hopefully, just hopefully, I will see some small point, and inkling of hope, a small ray of light to it all.

Here's to unwrapping the beauty behind all the ugly.