On Life

The ups, the downs. The highs, the lows. The to and fros. From smiling to crying, whilst what, how and why-ing. Life. A never-ending confusion of questions, and changes and moments. Moving ones, awe-inspiring ones, life changing ones... and downright dull ones. Big things and small things. I suppose short things and tall things (to keep with the rhyming...). We are constantly changing, the world is constantly spinning... and sometimes we get dizzy. Need to sit down and just catch up with ourselves.

When I was a child, my brother and I used to stand in the garden and spin and spin until when we stopped, the world continued to spin before our eyes. We thought it meant we could see the Earth spinning. Wrong as that was, we enjoyed that spin. We enjoyed a speedy pace of life, when friendships and interests and fads came with as much ease, and as great a moving on rate as the wind. The air was never stagnant, and the constant moving on of life was thrilling.

As I have got older, I sometimes find myself overwhelmed with the changes. With the speedy pace of life. Sure enough, a lot of aspects of life have slowed, and sometimes, yes, the air does get stagnant and it is all I can do to stop myself from standing up and spinning again. To try and get it to move on. But mostly I am just terrified, and excited, by the speed at which we move into each and every stage in life. Only yesterday I was that 8 year old spinning in her garden. Now I am 20, nearly 2/3 of my way through University, and about to face the prospect of living in the real world. I won't be able to crawl into a book, a film, a diary or an MSN conversation for hours, days, weeks at a time. I will have to choose my life, and live it! This is not a bad thing... but it is a daunting one! And of course, we can change our lives right up until the moment we die... but as I said, the older we become, the harder it is to jump from one thing to another... changing horses midstream, so to speak.

Then we must hold on to what is constant. But what is constant? Our beliefs? No... they develop, they are questioned, they grow. Our selves? They change too. Then what? I don't know. Ultimately, it is important just not to get caught up in the whirlwind, let your life fly by with options and choices and fear of change. Rather, live it. It will challenge you. It will hurt you. But it will do so much more than that.

Hate life or love life, we all have to live life.