I attended my friend's father's funeral last weekend. It had been a sudden passing, and I found my friend's resilience and ease of disposition altogether nothing short of inspiring. His mother had recently woken up from a coma and had been recovering from an illness, while his father and him didn't have a great relationship; they had come to peace with each other and let bygones be bygones. He himself had suffered epilepsy and experienced a stroke a couple of years ago.
Yet he has a genuine lightheartedness about him, a friendly, inquisitive yet sincere nature when meeting new friends. He and his lovely girlfriend recently got engaged.
As my friend delivered the eulogy that evening, he talked openly about the memory of his father; he touched upon the reminder that life was incredibly short. He was mourning, but he wasn't lamenting his death so much as he was celebrating his father's life, and his entry to a place better than the one that we all currently know. One of the things he mentioned was that his father didn't have much - in terms of wealth. He didn't have tons of money, he didn't own any property. What his son talked about, was his character. Financial assets he bore none, but character was what he had; his character was what he was known for.
There's a reason why men and women hope to "marry rich." Sure, bills are an arduous source of stress in life. But at the end of the day, no one cares about money. It won't matter how much money you made, the houses you bought, or the cars you owned; that's all just stuff.
Speaking of which, I am still clearing out my apartment. I wasted a lot of dough. And man, I have a lot of stuff - which now weighs me down - every little thing is another item I need to figure out how to get rid of - ship, donate, or toss? People waste a lot of money.
It doesn't matter if a guy sends me flowers to apologize for some sort of former disappointment. In fact, I love getting flowers - (I'm a sweeping romantic, hello!) but time is precious - any physical gift purchased could never truly replace time lost; for me, time is the most valuable thing any person could give me. The greatest disappointment or pain anyone could inflict upon you is to deem you unworthy of his or her time.
So what control do we have over our time?
The funeral just reminded me that yes, life is short. Did you already forget?
People never look back at their lives and say, "Man, I wish I had worked more." What would you do, given the opportunity to do anything at all?
Joie de Vivre
Thank goodness I'm not a drinker, a smoker, or gateway drug user. Hmm. I suppose the aforementioned are both gateway drugs.
If you look at the fine print, I have all the right ingredients for closet-case addict. Suburban angst, cultural identity conflicts, having B positive blood, I'm a writer, you get the drift. Could've been living life in the fast-and-easy lane, where the talent and passion ride strong and hot but always die young.
The physical evidence is there. I love the taste of coffee and how it makes me feel. Foods like bitter dark chocolate, Herr's ketchup potato chips, Rita's custard gelati; one of the things I can't stop talking about, one of my favorite things, is food - must be because of how significant it is to me that it activates the pleasure center in the brain. I love getting my pedicure done because of the mini foot massage that comes with it. All of that points toward satisfaction felt through physical senses - a physical kind of joie de vivre.
Hmmm. I wonder if I'll ever get some more Chocovivo before I leave town.
