Have you ever been going along, living your life, living in your reality, and then suddenly something happens that rips your world right in two? You see something or hear something, and suddenly everything you are, everything you're doing, shatters into a thousand pieces, bitter realization.
Prologue.
At times, it's seemed as though life contains an endless supply of days.
I thought this for sure when I was younger. It didn't matter how long I held a grudge or how long I waited to do something I wanted—there would be an unlimited pool of other opportunities. At least, that's what I thought back then.
Maybe it's a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, the moment when you realize life happens now and that's all you're guaranteed. It doesn't really hit you when you merely know it intellectually, like you know your ABCs, state capitals, and other concrete facts.
It hits you when somehow you feel it. Your health declines. You lose someone you love. A tragedy rocks your world. It isn't until you realize that all life fades that you consider now a commodity, and a scarce one at maybe that's irrelevant.
Maybe living a meaningful, passionate life has nothing to do with its length and everything to do with its width.