Getting older it started to dawn on me that 'happily ever after' was just a fairy tale, and that made me angry. How was it possible that happily ever afters' weren't real, when it seemed so real to me as a child? Unfortunately alot of things seemed real to me as a child, but I tucked all of this into the back of my mind and returned to living like it still exsisted.
Life got difficult and I was facing challenges I never thought would happen to me in my life, and so I reverted to reruns of Grey's Anatomy. In one episode they quoted "It doesn't matter that its not happily ever after, what matters is that its happily right now."
When you see so many bad things happening all around you, you begin to focus on the possibilites that you will also land happily ever after, trying to make sure that you are nothing like your patients. Sometimes, it gets to be so worrysome that you forget a crucial point. "{But} at some point you start to realize your life is happening now. Not after med school, not after residency, right now. This is it. It's here. Blink and you'll miss it." (Greys 5.23)I had spent so much time before these last few weeks involved in anything other than my life, and farther from happily ever after than I had thought possible. I was angry, I was stressed and more than anything I was unhappy. But then, life throws things your way that makes you realize you need to be living.
This weekend simply reinforced my belief that this is life, and this is now. Gathered around dinner tables, talking to old friends, catching up with family, events that are so simple yet happen so rarely, I have finally felt like I was living again. All this time I had convinced myself I was simply 'wasting time' until I landed my dream job, or until I found my prince charming and got married, but its so far from that. Its every morning, its every evening, its going on right now.
So I challenged myself to live my life before its too late. I wrote down my list of things I want to do, things that will make my everyday more worthwhile. Singing loudly to the radio in the car. Dancing to country music videos whenever I feel the urge. Searching for stupid jokes just so that I can laugh out loud. Watching my favorite movie, over and over until its no longer my favorite. Telling people that I care, that I miss them, before its too late. Focusing on what I find fascinating, and searching for my passions. Learning from people, even if I've never met them before that conversation.
Not too long after I started doing this I realized something about life, something that I wish I had learned long before this.Reality. It's so much more interesting than living happily ever after.
