Easy come, easy go.

So I know I haven’t been blogging for a while, (or more than a while) and that’s probably why my head is currently overflowing with thoughts all alluding to different things.

Very recently I went through an experience where I was forced to acknowledge the value of life and how quickly life can be taken away from you, as individuals living in society today we take for granted waking up in the morning, rolling across the bed and checking our buzzing blackberry’s for messages that are so insignificant, going about our daily routines as if we are entitled to this life. Do we ever stop and be grateful for life itself, be grateful that we can get out of bed and face another day?

We complain about the littlest of things. “My food is too cold” “I hate school” “I have nothing to wear”, but do we ever stop to think, “at least I have food” or “at least I am being given an education”? I myself am guilty of this, we are programmed to complain about every single quirk that occurs in our daily lives and we take for granted and fail to recognize how grateful we should be that we even have these things to complain about.

We do the same with people. We get so comfortable having them around that we take their presence for granted and only when they’re gone do we realize the true value of having them in our lives. I’ve recently come out of an intense exam period and I remember how during that time my mom would ask me to make her a cup of tea or do something simple for her like wash the dishes and my response would always be “I’m studying” or “I’m busy.”  Looking back now, some people wish that they could do those things for their mothers, while I took those simple things for granted.

In the week that’s past my mom collapsed in the bathroom where I found her. I can’t explain the feelings that went through my mind when I saw her lying on our bathroom floor helplessly, unable to fend for herself or even to form a structured sentence with her lips.  My mother, my pillar of strength appeared to be at the most vulnerable I had ever seen her.

My mom ended up going for brain surgery a day later and is in recovery now. When I find myself being faced with the question “How are you?” I immediately respond with “I’m fine, hanging in there” but I’m really not, I have so many emotions inside and I just don’t know how to express them. How can you tell someone how you’re feeling when what you’re feeling is foreign to you?

You tell people what you’re going through and they give you advice and support but honestly, no one really knows how you’re feeling. Those people that tell me “Oh I know what you’re going through” annoy me so much because they don’t.  No one really knows what anyone else is going through because they only see what you choose to show them.

This experience has taught me the value of life and just how quickly it can be taken away from you, no matter how old you are or how healthy you may appear to be.  We take life for granted, it’s what we do and it’s what we will continue to do. We take for granted the people that we encounter and the things that come easy to us. At the risk of sounding cliché, “appreciate what you have, before life makes you appreciate what you had”