In a Chaotic World, Take Time to Reflect

By: Kali Lamparelli
Posted In: Opinion

The road stretches beyond us as my twin and I drive toward the ocean. We let the music fill our cracked hearts. Another fight, another slammed door, another tear shed, and another dysfunctional family born. Kariana turns the volume up higher and we let the music seep through us because there are no words for our numbness and there is no destination for our tears, no other warm home to walk into, just each other, the road and the ocean waves.

A 3-year-old boy lost his father this week, Anna Nicole Smith passed away, a renowned astronaut made an emotionally poor decision and life continues on. I turn the worn pages of a book, my life going on while the little boy places a teddy bear on his father’s casket, Smith’s daughter no longer has a mother and the astronaut of courage no longer has her freedom. I finish the book and the last lines tell me to not share myself with others because I’ll miss everyone if I share who I am.

Is it really worth it to share our lives with others when the pain we can end up with is unbearable? Yes, it is worth it.

If we never risk, at the end of every day we will fall asleep with nothing and awaken with no knowledge of how to feel, grow and love. We are not freed of our chains if we never risk. If I never risked loving and learning who people really are, I would never know what loss feels like. The pain can be unbearable, the life ache of being alone, but if we never experience those moments of LIFE, real, true passionate LIFE, we would never know the experience of loss nor would we have hope for the future.

Time and time again we are warned that life is short, too short. We never truly wake up until we are fully aware that everything ends in an eventual death. Morbid? Yes, very. I am standing at a funeral, I am 11, I’m not crying, and I do not understand death. The only thing I said to her was that I loved her as cancer destroyed her. I wonder, even today, if that was enough. She has faded from my memory; a decade ago she was the only thing in my mind and heart. She was the warmth my sister and I on that particular evening would have driven to.

Every minute I waste doing things that are not worthwhile is another minute I’ll never get back. I refuse to say yes to everyone and everything; I refuse to do things that don’t move my heart. Paint your present canvas with compassion and with the deepest parts of your heart; do not fear the life in living, at the end of the day it is your own reflection shining back at you not the worlds.