These days so many things are taken for granted. Life being the main fixation; I think that speaks for itself. What I want to talk about is two specifics; love and time.

Why?

They both intertwine with one another. Love is time, time is love. You can’t have one without the other. My main inspiration for this was seeing the movie, P.S. I Love You, in it, the main female character loses her husband to a tumor. She never really knew how much she loved him until he was gone. Life’s cruel like that, we never are struck with that realization until it’s too late to step back a couple of paces.

Love is taken for granted in so many ways. You have those that use their loved ones. Whether it be a parents, sibling, friend, or significant other. A lot of the time it’s for money and/or shelter. We walk all over them and just grasp at the material objects. Sometimes petty fights break out and you speak very hateful words to the other. Next thing you know there’s a car accident killing them and your last words were, “I hate you.” Nice finishing touch, right?

When people say that words don’t hurt, they’re dead wrong. Words hurt more than physical pain. A lot of words scar individuals for life, unknowingly of course. The teenage girl that grew up without a father after him promising her he’d never miss another birthday, or another girl whose mother is always calling her fat and ugly so she starts throwing up in hopes to satisfy her mothers needs. Or what about the little boy who eats and eats yet can’t manage to gain a pound so he’s called a skinny runt? To some of us those may just be jokes or you may shrug them off. Numerous people don’t stop to think that maybe that person isn’t as strong as you and I to move past that situation and make something good of ourselves; better ourselves.

Combining love with time, that’s a whole ‘nother scenario that gets under my skin that I see constantly. Hell, I’ve even lived it. You fall in love with someone, they return those feelings. You’re not together. Why the hell not? There are contributing factors, but oddly enough you can’t seem to pinpoint the exact reason. All you know is that crying yourself to sleep at night no longer works. You yearn for that person’s touch and presence right next to you every night. Not being able to help yourself, you wonder if they have those same feelings. Quickly you shove them to the back of your mind thinking, “Nah, if they had these thoughts they’d be next to me and I’d be asleep peacefully in their arms.”

So what are you going to do when one day you get a phone call saying that the person you love has been killed, or that they’re in the hospital in a coma? You’re gonna wish you had said the words that had been kept unspoken, you would’ve wished that you’d been there every night with your arm around them, enjoying the scent of their hair and dreaming about the fun time you’ll have this coming weekend with a surprise snowball fight you have planned. Looking over at your love you soon realize that won’t happen because you’re too late. If you’re lucky, you’ll be given another chance. Are you going to take that one for granted too?

I’ve loved, I’ve lost. Do I have regrets? Yes, major ones. Do I wish I could go back? Yeah, I most certainly do a lot of the time. Sometimes I think I’ll get another chance, but then I stop and remember, “I’m the one who wants to take another round, I’m the one who loves him unconditionally, but it doesn’t rest in my hands, it rests in his. He’s the one who needs to figure out what he wants and if he's truly happy with where he is, before it all fades away.”

Life is full of agony from the bullets it throws at us. Why add to that agony by not embracing the people you love when you have the chance to do so? Take the time to show them and tell them how much you truly love them. Don’t be afraid to stick with them. Because honestly, who can tell when their time, or even worse, your time could be up.

Think about it. Would you rather wake up next to that amazing person that you can truly say you love, or would you rather be sitting in their funeral dwelling on what could have been. Time is something that we have no idea how much we have. Why take it for granted? Everything you do, can involve another person.

In English our final was an essay on, “Can I choose my own destiny?” I wholeheartedly replied with a simple yes. The decisions that we make map out the road ahead of us. Whether we take a left turn, right turn, or keep going straight is our decision. No one makes that decision for us. Some take that road alone, some would prefer company. Just remember, loneliness will only grow. Make the right choice on who you have at your side, you don’t want to waste your time on someone who isn’t what you want, or waste your time being lonely when that special person could be there the whole time.