Life is Your Story

 I’m 16, hopping fences, one backyard to the next. It’s Fall and the air is hinting that winter is on its way. It’s one of those nights when you can smell everyone’s dinner cooking. It’s dark out, earlier than the previous month and the kitchen lights are on. I can see entire families seated at the table, eating, talking, enjoying the end of another day together. I see single people alone, watching TV, eating slowly, stepping outside of themselves, wondering, when this became their nightly routine and how they ending up alone. I reach my house and enter the back door that we keep open because I am always losing or forgetting my keys. There are meals prepared for the week by my mother. My parents are both working, and my brothers are nowhere in sight. I warm up some chicken and rice and I am just about to chow down when the phone starts ringing, back in the day when everyone had a “land line” and if you were talking and someone else was trying to reach you, well they got a “busy” signal

There’s a common ground between all of us and it starts with worrying. Everyone everywhere worries about something. We are born to worry. Some of us turn it off better than others but for the most part it’s always there in the back of your mind pulling at you. Health or lack thereof can especially bring on worry. It’s one of the most important things you can worry about. It’s something that you often have little control over but it can take control of you and your entire life in a fraction of a second. We worry about love. Love isn’t free and it isn’t all that you need but whatever you do have of it and no matter how much you have of it; you worry you will lose it. We all lose love and find love throughout our lifetimes. We give our love away and we take love often without really comprehending its value. We worry about our children from the time they are born until the time we leave this world and chances are that even when we are no longer here