Today.

Today, I saw my father cry.  This is the man who is always strong.  This is the man who was calm after injuring himself doing home renovations.

Today, I also saw my mother cry.  This is the woman who never cries.  This is the woman who's rational mind keeps the family going.

Today, I saw my sister cry.  This is the girl who puts up a fight and never accepts defeat.

Today, I saw my family show love.  We never show love.  We don't do the whole hugging thing.  We don't touch.  We don't talk about what we're feeling.

Today, I learned that we, as human beings, are not so different at all.  We all go through a loss.  We all go through pain.  We all have insecurities and skeletons we don't show each other.  And sometimes, those things we hide deep in the corners of our minds, they come out.  We don't mean for those things to happen.  Sometimes, they just do.

Today, I've also learned that life is precious.  The little moments, they're precious too.  The big stuff, well yes, they're precious too.  The people around you, they're priceless.  I learned that I need to appreciate everything that's in my life right now.  Pretty soon, they might not be there.

Today, I completely understood why they say that love makes the world go round.

Last Dance

This is a song I wrote about a year ago after my school dance.  It's about constantly holding onto that slight chance that all your expectations and fairy tale stories will come true.  But sometimes they don't.  Sometimes you have to accept that there may not be that last dance.

Lyrics:
The lights fade, the spotlight glowing
I see your face and I wish you'd stay
You pick me up, said "You look gorgeous"
I didn't mean to turn around

Come back, won't you?  Come back.
I've been holding on to that chance
of our last dance.

The music slows, they've all got someone to hold
I look for you in a crowded room
The time goes by, the end of the night
I realize that you're no longer mine


Come back, won't you?  Come back.
I've been holding on to that chance
of our last dance.

One Life

My alarm in the morning is the chorus to "One Life" by Hedley.  The text on my alarm says "the day won't wait". These remind me to stop pressing snooze and get out of bed.  To get up and live my life instead of sleeping in my bed all day.

And today I realized that it's not enough to just get out of bed.  It's not enough to just be awake.  There's a fine line between being awake and living your life.

I also realized that life's a crazy, unpredictable thing.  We don't control it.  Sometimes we do.  There's no way of predicting the future.  Life's short, but it also lasts a while.  The real thing I learned today is, if we're not living our lives, what are we doing here?

I'm still trying to live my life.  Not just wake up in the morning, but take chances.  Live without regrets.  Without worries.  Give 100% and accept nothing less.  It's not as easy as it sounds and even tonight after an eye opening experience, I still cannot truthfully say I can and will live my life.  But I can try.

And it starts with tonight.  It starts with a few of the messages that I will never have the strength to say in person.

Chains

This world is so big, filled with so many people, and yet, we choose to sit comfortably exactly where we are.
Who's putting chains on who I am, what I'm doing, or where I should go?
I'm lucky enough to live in a place where I can blast my music up and be candid in my blogs.
But I'm still here, sitting in the parameters others set out for me.
It's not a question of whether I can break free of these "chains".
It's a question of if I will.