this floating planet

Sometimes I find it very odd that I am a human being, walking this floating planet in the middle of a universe full of vast nothingness. It's just sort of... odd, isn't it?

I wonder why it is that the first five seconds of a particular song can drag me back in time to a particular moment in a particular place with particular feelings, and then somehow I'm stuck in a time warp for the remainder of those 3 minutes and 39 seconds.

I wonder why I spend my brain space worrying so much about things like graduate school and the fact that I didn't practice very much this afternoon, or where I'm going to be in 5 years or if I'll live to be an aunt someday.

And then there are days like today, when I read article after article about senseless, heartbreaking tragedies, that my very existence seems to halt and I wonder if it's okay for me to continue living and breathing like I am when others were denied that very opportunity early this morning.

It is sobering, haunting, and difficult to understand. I could have been one of those people. It could have been someone that I know or someone that I love dearly. It makes me wonder about this whole floating planet/being alive thing.

I wish my words were more poetic, but alas, they are not. I can offer this, though:
This whole walking and breathing and being alive thing is temporary and fragile. If I'm lucky, I'll live to be 97 years old, I'll have a walker with tennis balls and a giant family to keep my memory alive. I'll eat 76 more birthday cakes and make at least that many more for the people I love. I'll fly an airplane, I'll go sailing, I'll travel the world and make music and squeeze the most that I can out of my capacity to love, and to live, to think and create, and to believe in something larger than myself.
I count myself as lucky to have already eaten 21 birthday cakes. I've written music and read books and taken photographs of fantastic moments in this life I've been given. I have eaten fresh guacamole and homemade pies, worn dresses sewn by my mother, and have come to love an extraordinary amount of people.

The challenge for me in all of this is to not let senseless and heartbreaking tragedies stop me from living. I tend to hide when lives are lost for reasons that I can't comprehend. I am simply terrified. I walk on eggshells and I worry constantly, consistently.
But if I do that, then aren't I doing a disservice to those lost lives? My own existence in spite of their passing is a challenge to live a little fuller every day. In honor of the other souls who have left this floating planet before me, I will dig a little deeper and try a little harder. I will do my best not to be afraid of life and all that comes with it. We don't really have a choice anyway, do we?


Here's to life, fresh guac, and this little floating planet.