Personal Rant: - "Life: It's About Time and What You Do With It While You Have It"

Ya ever have one of those days where you just need a swift kick in the ass from reality? One of those days where you just feel the need to get right with your heart and your soul? We all do. Welcome to today, Saturday, July 9, 2011. Today was mine. When I have those days, I climb in Sophie (my Xterra) and head over to Oakwood Historic Cemetery. This cemetery has been around for YEARS, all the way back to the Civil War era and has thousands of graves of common people, entire families, Civil War heroes, famous personalities such as Senator Jessie Helms, NC State Wolfpack legendary coach, Jim Valvano, and most recently another member of the '83 Wolfpack basketball family, Lorenzo Charles. As I walked among the headstones, I couldn't help but think about what these people must have been like, how their lives were, how they died. So many of the stones have personal inscriptions on them, happy thoughts, thoughts of love and togetherness, or just simple Bible verses. People leave little various trinkets on the headstones and you wonder what the significance of each one is between the one leaving the item and the one they've left it for in remembrance. There are sea shells, toys, college sports memorabilia, Nascar paraphanalia, wind chimes, angels, bears, rabbits, statues, American flags and even airplane and full size bottles of liquor. No matter what the item, it means something between two people and that's probably something only the two of them know. It's pretty special, I think. 

Headstones are also inscribed with symbols of things like a treble clef if the deceased liked music, the Mason's symbol for those who belonged to the Masonic Lodge, the Star of David for those who were Jewish, checkered flags for those who liked auto racing and so many others that I don't even know what they are. Seeing these things and knowing how much these people were obviously loved and still missed gives me that reality check I need. I'm alive, breathing, have my family and friends and life really is pretty good. One thing I did notice that made me sad was that so many graves seem to have been neglected and just forgotten. I guess people think that just because someone is a relative they didn't know personally or who died before they were old enough to get to know them doesn't matter. People matter and someone should take the time to make sure they're not neglected and tossed aside, seen as just another headstone in a wide sea of headstones. Each grave represents a life, a person, a person that was loved by someone and important to someone. People are not trash, they are throwaways and they are not worthless. So sad to see, makes me ashamed of people.

It seems people have forgotten how important life truly is, how it is a gift instead of a right. People are always finding something to bitch about and it pisses me off so I'm gonna do some bitching of my own about the following common everyday complainings I hear or see posted online:

1.) Work - Shut the hell up and be glad you have a job and think about how it would feel to have to wonder where your next meal is coming from and how you're going to pay your bills and keep your house because your unemployment ran out. Unemployment is rampant right now and alot of the homeless weren't homeless this time last year. That person begging for your change outside McDonald's could just as easily be you. Being laid off does not discriminate. I learned that the hard way.

2.) Spouses / Significant Others - Again, shut the hell up and learn to focus on the good things about the person you CHOSE to be your significant other. There is a reason you chose them after all, there must be something good about them. So they don't help clean the house, so what? Is that REALLY what's pissing you off about them or is it just something to hide the real reason? Are they lazy? So what, I'm sure you are too at times. Enjoy them, you might wake up tomorrow and not have them at all. Now that being said, if they really are an ass and making you miserable, chuck 'em and find someone who won't, just stop complaining to the world about them. You have a choice to keep them or throw them back.

3.) Money - Be glad you have what you have, there's less and less of it out there in this economy. If you want to spend it on something frivolous, do it. If you want to save it, do it. If you wanna play the lottery, do it. It's yours, you earned it, you spend it the way you want to that suits your needs the best. Just stop bitching about not having alot of it. Unless you're a professional actor, sports player, lawyer or doctor type, you've got what the rest of us in the everyday world have. You're not alone.

4.) Kids - Again, be happy you have them. You chose to have them. Kids are a blessing even though sometimes they feel like the spawn of Satan (and I know, I hear them a million times a day at work screaming and yelling as they terrorize the mall shoppers). You were a kid once too and you too were the spawn of Satan to your parents. Love 'em, hug 'em, spend time with 'em, reprimand 'em when they do wrong and praise them when they do right, just love them and make sure they know they're loved.

5.) Your Weight or Shape: Good Lord, stop dwelling on it and talking it about 24/7. Those who love you love you at any size and shape. We could all stand to shape up and lose some but we don't want to hear and talk about it all the freakin' time. On the topic of, if you're a gym rat, do we have to hear about that every other post? We know, you go to the gym, you're on a diet, you're walking, you have six pack abs or you have a fat 12 pack. WE KNOW! Stop overthinking, overanalyzing and most of all overtalking it to everyone. It gets old and makes people not want to be around you because it brings them down. Yes, I have a big ass, yes it follows me as the moons of Saturn circle it, I'm never going to be a size 2 and wear jeans that don't make it look big but it's not a character flaw and I've learned to accept that. Accept your own physical uniqueness and work it to it's advantage. It doesn't define who you are.

6.) Being Too Busy: We've never TOO busy. While we'd like to think we are, we're not. Everyone has the same amount of time in the day, it's how you chose to use it that's important. If you're a workaholic, slow down and take time for yourself. You'll never hear anyone say on their death bed that they wish they'd worked more. If you're a parent, parenting is a special kind of busy, make sure to spend some of that busy time WITH your kids instead of using it doing everything FOR your kids. Live life one day at a time, stop living on schedules and agendas, live it on your terms and not let the outside dictate how you live. You are the only one that can make your life work in your favor, get off your ass and do it.

Moral of the story (before I step down off my soap box): Stop bitching about the thorns in the roses and be glad there ARE roses. Time is all you have, make the most of it and live each day as thought it was your last, one day it will be.