I've had a lot on my mind lately.  A lot of uncomfortable things prodding at my mind, my heart, my esophagus.  Since as far back as I can recall, I've always been one of those who thinks about dying.  Not just in a morbid, terrified way.  I just think about it.  I'm not altogether convinced I won't die somewhat young.  (Family, take a deep breath.)  I don't have any reason to think I will die young.  And I definitely hope to live a long, long time.  But I think about it. I remember being 5 or 6 and thinking about it.  I wonder how it will affect my family and friends.  I worry some.  I pray.  And the past month I've thought about it a lot more than normal. 

I've realized that 24 is a big year.  It's not just me who began asking a lot of questions and really evaluating at 24.  I'm realizing a lot of my friends have/are.  My sister said the same thing is true of 29 she heard - especially for women.  I think it's that "time before" when we stop and take role.  We realize we're about to be in that age we've seen far off for many years, and we wonder if we are who we thought we'd be.  It's a pretty safe bet to say we're not.  And then we determine where we are okay with that, where we're grateful for that, and where we're not okay and want to grow.  It's a big year of growing.  And as I entered my last month of 24 this December, I feel like I got the big exam to see if I was going to be admitted into the class of 25 or not.

My main question through it all has been, Does my life still hold more potential than my death?  That sounds ridiculous, but wait a moment.  When young people in our lives pass away, it hits us all to the core.  I think there is so much possibility and potential and hope bound up in them, that when they die it explodes in the worlds they're leaving.  We miss the older people in our lives as they pass away as well.  It breaks out hearts.  But there is something about a young person passing away that changes everyone it touches.  And it had me thinking about what would happen if I died young and how deeply I know it would affect people.  And I asked myself, Could me living affect them even more?  The question eventually formed into the one at the start of this paragraph.  And that question has been haunting me ever since, Does my life hold more potential than my death?  Does it hold more power?   I want it to.  I want to live that way.  Gosh, I want to really live!  And that has been part of what's been propelling me lately to take risks, to make choices, to say things, to love, to move on, to forgive and forgive and forgive.  And even to cry.  And THANK GOD for that in my life right now, because this has been a month of real decisions.  Of change in direction.  Of change in perspective.  Of change in my capacity of courage.  

I think there's a reason a lot of us our age have this growing desire to be risk-takers, to be courageous, to be brave with our lives, and why we think about death.  The baby-boomers and those before us saw medicine lengthening people's lives.  We've grown up seeing people die of AIDS, get cancer, die in car crashes, etc.  We've lost friends before graduation.  We know we won't be here forever.  We know medicine and technology can't give us immortality.  And some of us have even been raised with the suspicion that ours might really be the blessed generation to see the day so many have longed for.  I don't know.  I just know we need courage.  I know we don't need to be babied, coddled, or spoon-fed.  I know we're no longer children.


***With all this in my head - I'm now just starting The Hunger Games, and oh gosh, I'm a bit concerned by how much this book might pierce right to my vulnerable core.  An aptly-read book can shape and frame us.***