Here's To Life

I received a card in the mail today from one of my dearest friends, and as the missive came to a close she wrote, "Here's to life."  Through my tears, I halted, struck by such a simple phrase.  In that instant I remembered that life means so much more than just existing... it means thriving, feeling, grasping, holding, slipping, losing, thrilling, aching, reveling, breathing... it means being.  Sometimes, when life is more something other than I care to deal with, I have this sense that I'll just stop being for awhile.  I'll refuse to answer my phone, or look others in the eye.  I'll just pretend that I am not.  I don't want to die, or be finished - I simply don't want to be for awhile.  But that's hardly what life is about, now is it?

To do life is to take note of what one is and how one is.  I thought today about how quickly life can change.  I considered how very, very little it takes to corrupt one's perspective, or realign one's dreams.  I pondered the grossly tenuous state of being - that really, we are all so fragile, so easily damaged and so easily healed.  It requires but a moment to shift reality from point "A" to point "B," and furthermore, life seems to throw more than a couple of those moments my way.  I suppose it should be said that I resent the vertigo of those moments... 

I don't actually like roller coasters.  I tried to, for awhile - I tried to love the feeling of anticipation when the machine climbs hundreds of feet in the air.  I tried to love the sudden loss of stability when the machine hurtles to the earth and pistol-whips me back away again.  I told myself that I loved it, and I rode many a coaster in an attempt to verify my claim - but really, I don't love it.  I feel the same way about life.  I try to love the forced exhileration of drastic heights, and I try to embrace the plummet back into reality - but really, I don't love it.  It just seems so absurd to me to wait all that time in line for a few minutes of ups and downs, only to get off the ride and go wait in another queue in order to do it all over again.  I prefer a life that's like walking along a river bank in the cold, quiet drizzle of autumn.  For the most part, my feet carry me along with only minimal maneuvering around obstacles, but every once in awhile I stop and I look up.  I raise my face to the coming wind, and I breathe it in, and I know - in those moments that I am.  I become aware of me and my prerogative to be.   That's the life I love.