In my phone, I have an events app. It's an app, where you enter dates that are important, like birthdays or weddings or vacations, and it tells you how many days until that next big thing. Right now, I have a countdown to my sister coming home, a countdown to Easter, a countdown to my birthday in May. I also have countdowns to the summer and to my sister's wedding a year-and-a-half from now. Every day, I look at that app, and it tells me exactly how many days I have to wait.

For my entire life, I've been waiting. Waiting to be a teenager, waiting to not be a teenager, waiting to turn 21, waiting to move out, waiting to be done with college, waiting to get a job. I'm waiting for the next big thing. I am a big planner. I want to know what I'm doing this weekend, or next month, or next year. As a result of this, a lot of the time, it's hard for me to live in the moment. I could be having a great day, but I'm still counting down the days until spring break, or until the end of the semester.

I guess you could say I have a lot to look forward to, but I rarely take my life one day at a time. I'm dying to get to that exciting event, but I'm forgetting to live along the way. I am forgetting to stop and smell the roses. I'm forgetting to be thankful that I got a good parking spot at school, or that I had time to watch my favorite show with my mom. I forget to look forward to the trips to the mall with my friends, or the dinners out on a weekend just because.

I'm waiting for big events, and I forget that every day is a big event. Every day is a day to look forward to; not just the birthdays and the vacations and the weddings. Every day is worth living, and not just living to get through to the next day.

Throughout my short 20 years of life, I've been to a lot of funerals of people I love and care for. A lot more funerals than anyone my age should have been to. And a lot of those funerals have been for people who have died too young, who didn't get to enjoy the next birthday or the next wedding. Those people didn't get to experience the next day, or a day two years from now. It's scary to think that tomorrow isn't guaranteed. And I forget sometimes that I'm lucky enough to have each day.

These past 20 years, I've been doing a lot of waiting. Waiting for the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year. And along the way I've been wishing my life away. A life that's not worth wishing away. As a very smart and beautiful girl once said, maybe I should just "live a little."