It never ceases to amaze how someone or something that has little or no effect on your life one day, can sometimes have a tremendous effect on another day. Yesterday was one of those days for me.
First, the back story. I went to a high school with 3,500 students. Pretty big. There were five buildings, some multi-leveled. So it is not hard to believe that you might go to school with someone there and never know they existed. Being a teen-aged boy, I tried to be aware of as many teen-aged girls as I could be. I say aware, because, in reality, I was generally too shy to approach any of them. But I was aware of them.
Thirty years later, one of those girls sent me a friend request on Facebook. She included a note that said, "I don't know if you know who I am, but I was always aware of you". Wow! My thoughts exactly. You see, I was aware of her back then too. She was quite attractive, and had a smile that hinted at an air of mystery. Believe me, I was aware. So I accepted the friend request. And I haven't regretted it for a moment.
My new friend commented on some of my Facebook postings and links, and it became quite evident she was intelligent and had a cool sense of humor. Those were two things I never knew about her in school. She had posted on her Facebook about being sick, but I never inquired during the occasional chats we had online. One day though, she posted a note on her Facebook page. The effect on me was astounding.
She wrote about returning home from a treatment she needed. As she wrote about about the trip in to the hospital, her husband's sense of humor, the personality of her doctor, and the feelings she had when the doctor gave her test results, I read along along, smiling at one sentence, and biting my lip on others. Then she relayed a story about a young couple with children she had encountered in a restaurant on the way home. The interaction between her and this couple was simply breathtakingly refreshing. But it's what she wrote afterward that hit me like a frying pan to the face, and literally welled my eyes with tears.
She wrote about how this experience with the young couple cheered her up. She wrote how this young couple had validated her faith. She wrote about being inspired to live her life, however long or short it may be, to the max. And I wept.
I am not often touched emotionally by things. It's probably my biggest flaw as a human being. But reading her words made me realize that I have wasted a good portion of my life. But no longer. I have no reason not to experience my life to the max, instead of watching flow by me like a lazy river. I have no excuses to look at things and see the inherent beauty in them. I have no cause to just be an apathetic jerk, as I have been in the past. This young couple inspired her, and now she has inspired me. I hope that this blog will help me to pay it forward, and inspire someone out there as well.
In school, I was aware of a cute teen-aged girl.
Yesterday, I became aware of a beautiful, inspirational woman.
Take nothing, or no one, for granted my friends.
You just never know.
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