Some people are so afraid to die, that they never begin to live…

Wednesday, 29 January 2014 17:15

thecherrydollface

10 Comments

At 4:30 this morning I drove a very dear friend of mine to the airport so she could fly home to her dying mother. It really got me thinking about death on so many levels.

When I was 24 I had my first heart surgery and when I woke up they told me I had flat lined for 20 seconds. So technically I was a goner for 20 whole seconds. Honestly my first feeling was that I was duped. I didn’t get a light at the end of the tunnel, or to float above my body, or to see my great grandma. All I got was a lousy printout of my heart stopping, some gross incisions and a promise of a second more successful surgery.

But while I sat in that hospital bed recovering, I realized how damn lucky I was at that moment. And I also realized how completely worthless my life had been up until that point. Sure I had passed some cool milestones, but all in all I felt that I hadn’t been true to myself and I hadn’t fought hard enough for the things that I wanted. Which led me not only to start fighting for the things I wanted to accomplish, but I also to start fighting to feel like what I was doing mattered.

And you know what? It was scary as hell! But after dying, you don’t have much to lose. And the main thing I realized is that nothing in life just happens to you. The only thing that you are going to get by sitting and waiting is fat. So I grabbed my life by its life-balls and I changed it completely. I graduated college, left a 5 year dead end relationship, packed everything I had in a uhaul, and moved to LA with $1000 to my name and no solid plan in site. But my goal was to find what truly made me happy. And here I am 5 years later and I wouldn’t change a single thing.

Now I am doing things with my life that I am very proud of. And I am working every day to put positive energy into the universe and to help other people that haven’t had the life punch that I had yet. And finally for once in my life I am blissfully, wholly, unapologetically happy. And all it took was 20 seconds with the big man upstairs.