Life is More than you think it is

Life is much more than you now think it is and yet paradoxically it is also less than you presently think it is.

Life is actually a paradox. What you now think is important might only be relatively important in the long run of your life. And things you might not now value at all will be the things that might actually keep you alive in the long run.

How do I mean this?

For example, if you are a young person between 12 and 30, if you live to 65 or longer you will have to let go of likely your parents, your grandparents, your aunts and uncles and some of your cousins, some of your friends, localities that you once loved in order to go on with your lives. So, what is important now is going to change.

When you are young you are doing things for specific reasons but then those reasons change or go away and then what are you going to do? If your reason for living goes away what do you do then?

What I'm talking about would have been completely unthinkable for me when I was a young person. But, all you can do is to take one change in your life at a time and to enjoy it, grieve it, accept it and move on.

For example, my last child that I might ever have is going off to college next year, my two best friends from childhood passed away, one in 2006 and one I believe in 2010. My son got divorced a couple of years ago and i helped him survive that and now he lives too far away to drive to visit him more than once a year. My daughter lives in Portland, Oregon and I see her about every few months now. My son is going to be a father and so likely is getting married in the next 6 months or so but I'm too far away to really have the experience up close in being a grandfather for the first time. My father passed away in 1985 when I was 37, (too young for me when he was only 69 and I'm 65 myself now).
My mother passed away in 2008 the same year as my wife's father. You can see where I"m going with all this. I'm still okay even though I have been having heart problems for about 1 year now so I'm not sure about my health on a daily basis. So, even though I'm safe to travel long distances I don't know how I'm going to feel on a daily basis. I might live to be 100 or more or I could easily also die in my sleep or tomorrow or the next day.

So, enjoy each moment of life because you never know what life will bring you next. I"m very grateful for every moment of my life since I almost died for 7 months from fall 1998 to May 1999. Then I flew in fall 1999 to Scotland, England, Germany, Switzerland and then rented a motor home and drove through Germany, Switzerland Austria and from Switzerland I drove through the tunnels in the Alps into Italy which was an amazing experience. So, within 6 months I went from expecting to die to driving through the Alps in a motor home with my then 10 year old daughter, my 80 year old mother, my son who was 25 then and traveling with his friend on a Eurail Pass through all of Europe over several months. It was an amazing experience! Both Near Death and Life within 6 months. But that's how life always is for me: Amazing!