How we live our lives.

Today is a special day for me. It may not be the most important in my life but it shares a weight in my life that most days will never achieve. Today I turn 21. This milestone is seen by many people as an affirmation with society that allows them to have once locked doors opened to them. I look back at my life so far and I am lost in trying to understand what it all means. How do you define yourself through the time that you have already been given? We tend to think about our lives as a thing that goes onward and builds upon itself, well I do sometimes, but right now I think that truthfully our lives and the time that has been given so far is meant to show us that the past joys and triumphs we have are lessons for us to learn from. I recently had a class on women in literature. I found it hard to understand as someone who is not particularly adept at understanding what women are thinking or trying to convey. When the authors would go on and on about things that seemed mundane and unimportant to what was going on in the plot, I would lose interest. Now that I think back at this I realize that when we think about the small details we are trying to gain understanding of them in order to appreciate them more. I ended up liking the class because of what I could find beneath the story, what the author was trying to tell the readers beyond the blatant plot points and character interaction. This understanding has given me a very important gift. I look at my life and the things that have gone on in it and then I look under those events beyond the who, what, where, when, why, and I think about the feelings that came with those events. I think about what those events did to me, how they shaped me into the person I am right now. We live and that is an amazing gift. We are able to gain from the world around us. We are able to learn. I once heard that we are not able to fully understand our happiness, our existence, until we are very old and time begins to show us that we will not be around for much longer on this world. I think that that is not true. I think that we live for the moments and that we are able to appreciate our lives because they are so singular. No one will ever be just like me. No one will ever know what I have known in my life. I have a singular gift that no one else can ever steal from me or achieve through some means of trickery. Maybe life will take my memories away from me, maybe I one day will never be able to recall how I felt or what happened on my 21 birthday, but that does not mean it did not exist. The time we are given is so much more precious than we will ever know. We could be young or old but we will never really know that majesty that is our life, the gift that it is. I have been given so many gifts. I have been allowed so many things that others wish they could have. I am not being pridefull, people are selfish and no matter what circumstance there will always be someone else seeking what someone else has. I have to appreciate the things that I have been given. We all need to appreciate life more than we do. Humanity will never be peacful completly. No matter how perfect things are there will always be some level of unrest, it is just who we are as beings. I would wish that at some point we could see that life is meant to be cherished but I know that there will always be someone who pushed someone else or caused some sort of fight that leads to pain and striff. The pain we recieve in life is very important to us. When we go through moments that we wish would never happen and survive them it gives us a chance to see the joy that is the peaceful times or the good times. If we never had the ability to know how bad things can be we would never know the joy that those good times give to us. I do not wish pain or striff ever upon any person to teach them a lesson but that is the mystery of life it never lets you know anything until it happens. I am very young, and I hope there is still a great deal more time for me to learn about the lessons of life. I want to know the joy of love, I want to know the joy of being a Father, I want to know the countless amazing things that await me. But, nothing is for certain and all plans can always be changed, so, I will accept the 21 years of learning I have so far and be grateful for whatever number comes after.