my moments

When I asked you what your "moments" were, I was asking because I really wanted to know. I was looking for purpose, for value. I needed reminding of what that was. I pride myself on being an optimistic person. It's something I picked up on when my grandpa and 8 year old cousin passed away suddenly- and tragically within a few years of one another. In both instances, I somehow picked up this "optimistic" mechanism to deal with it. Instead of looking at it like we were losing something great (which we were), I tried to look at it as something that could do good. When my grandpa died, many of his siblings and members of our family took their health more seriously and in a family with a history of high cholesterol, this very well could have saved one or more of them who got the annual check-up at the doctor my grandpa didn't. When my cousin died, my aunt underwent genetic testing along with my other two cousins, and a cardioverter-defibrillator was implanted into her chest after she was diagnosed with Long QT syndrome. It brought our families together, at least for a while, taking comfort in one another. It flat out sucks in both cases that it took the loss of a life to bring awareness, but in dealing with the mess, looking at it in the most positive way I could was the only way I knew how to handle it.

However, I've been struggling to hold my head high lately. I guess I lost a bit of myself, the bit I've always known beyond a doubt. That's why I asked you. Watching someone slip away and receiving a phone call that someone left are two very different things. I hit a blank wall. And for me, that is a scary thing. Feeling the ground sink beneath my feet, seeing the grass on the other side was unnerving. In the same week, my dad received one of these phone calls, and it shook me even more. Hearing the phone calls on speakerphone from your mom's bedroom and listening to the voice mails again and again, walking through a lab sodden with silence... I became frustrated.

My moments are everywhere. It took one of them for me to think outside the dark bubble to see things the way I always have, as beautiful. Good moments are often fleeting. We don't get to bask in perfect days day after day. If anything, most of them are less than perfect and pass by unnoticed. It wasn't until I lost something that those days are the ones filled with the real moments that give life value. It's the every day moments that aren't special on their own that put together give your world purpose. The things that you have every day that keep you anchored and give you something to be appreciative of. Not the glitter and sparkle of a perfect moment that comes by every now and then, the glitter and sparkle of living a day with both the things you choose to happen and the things that choose to happen to you that make you content.


My moments are driving home from a much needed hot tub session with my best friends from high school, the people that can't ever be replaced by your best friends from college because they've seen us as we were when we didn't know who we were yet. Hearing "Closing Time" come on the radio and wordlessly, connecting us. My moments are walking three flights of stairs to my dad's lab and talking about our days. My moments are the creme brulle lattes my mom and I share every morning. My moments are sitting on the "peak" of Moscow Mountain and seeing my entire life in the radius of my thumbnail. My moments are dropping off my sister's friends and the drive home with just my sister listening to Taylor Swift. Hearing my sister's unguarded laugh. Seeing her work on an art piece for hours in front of the TV listening to something on Netflix and then seeing the finished product. My moments are a book on a sunny day; a book on a cloudy day. My moments are driving from Moscow to Pullman every day on the highway with the zFun 106.1. My moments are finishing the last onion bag after four years being up to my elbows in bleach. My moments are knowing I'm not alone, even if I feel like it and even if I don't want to talk about it. My moments are standing next to any body of water and feeling little. My moments are closing my eyes before bed. My moments are falling asleep to a movie on a Friday night. My moments are swinging on the playground that I spent six years of my elementary education giggling on.

I've learned through the years. I've learned from what memories I have of the people I love and I'll learn from my aunt for years to come after this summer is over.

I lose myself, we all lose ourselves, but sometimes its the moments you don't want to remember that you always will that are there to remind us what we already knew. Life is never something I want to see pass by unnoticed. I want to notice. I want to love every moment that I am granted.

thank you for your moments.

(check the link to read the previous post)