Until a week ago I had no real idea of what the inside of a hospital looked like. Sure, I'm like any other twenty-something, obsessed with "Grey's Anatomy," so I had a vague idea; sexy doctors and people hooked up to machines, lying in beds waiting for answers. In real life, it's not like Grey's Anatomy. There are no sexy doctors, but there are machines, and there is a lot of waiting for answers.
It is hard finding out someone you love is flawed. I realize that I am flawed, and I realize that nobody is perfect, but there are certain people we just hold to a higher standard. Watching these people fall is equivalent to realizing Santa or the Tooth Fairy don't really exist. You feel betrayed, but in the back of your mind, you always had your doubts.
Death is hard to grasp because it's so abstract. We don't think it can happen to us or the people we love. But it can, and it does. This week I watched someone I love lay in a hospital bed looking small, and defeated; hooked up to a million different humming and beeping machines. This is someone, who growing up was invincible to me. My papa has always been a giant, a character out of a book, not this shell of a person laying in this bed. My eyes have been opened. We only get this one life, and it's up to us to live it to the fullest, because you never know when your time is up.
It is hard to watch someone you love suffer, but it's harder to watch someone you love suffer by their own hand. Life is full of choices, we are literally shaping our futures as we speak. It is overwhelming the longer you think about it, but it's true. Our actions today will affect the consequences we have to face later on, and unfortunately, they don't just affect us. I have been lucky in life -- I do not have a close or personal relationship with death. This experience has changed the way I think and feel about many things. Life has taken on a new meaning.
There are positives in everything that happens to us. Even when it feels wrong, or when nothing is going right. I find that in my darkest moments I learn the most about myself. At the end of the day ships sink, bad things happen to good people. Bad things will happen to us when we least expect it and it will be up to us to deal with it. It's all apart of growing up, which isn't fun or rosy. While it seems tough, life isn't all bad or terrible. There is a lot of good in this world.
So no matter which ship sinks, whether it be the death of a loved one, a bad grade in a class, the falling out of a relationship or whatever, we have to be prepared for the worst. But we need to also enjoy all the good. Ships will sink, but that's why we have life jackets.
