AS IF.........

Dance as though no one were watching............


How easy is this to do? It doesn't matter where life's journey has taken us, doesn't matter if we have managed to jump the hurdle, or fallen head first down Alice's hole to Wonderland, coming up battered and bruised; it is easy to dance as though no one is watching. Sure, we may be a little embarrassed, sure we may be a little tipsy or hell, we may not just give a damn, but we can dance as though no one were watching.

Sing as though no one were listening.................

How easy is this to do? You could be as flat a spider on my wall after being smashed by a magazine, you could be tone deaf, you could ruin a song until it was unrecognizable, but this is still an easy thing to do. Sure we may sing with great gusto with a group of people, say at church or singing the National Anthem at a sporting event, because hey, who is going to hear us in a huge group of people (well not including those in your immediate vicinity lol who are trying to look discretely around to see where the cat-a-wailing is coming from; we can almost reach that high note that Celine does in Titanic and get a mouth full of shower water, because hey, that is our own personal recording studio, but we can sing as though no one were listening.

Live every day as if it were your last.................

How easy is this to do? It is easy to fill our time, our days with things to do, because there are a million things to do that can fill a void. You can sleep, you can drink, you can eat, you can run, you can picnic, you can fly, you can shout, you can help, you can drive, you can watch, you can do just about anything your imagination can think of and then some. Sure there may be time constraints, financial constraints, physical constraints, emotional constraints, but we can live every day as if it were our last.

Love as if you have never been hurt................

How easy is this to do? Out of all of them, this is the one that is almost impossible to achieve. How do you put aside the hurt of someone who you allowed into the darkest, quietest parts of your life? How do you learn to trust someone else with your heart, a heart that is already fragile or shattered, being held together with tape of time, that doesn't look as if it is going to last the distance. Sure you may have feelings for another person, sure you may allow them to know you, but the hurt will stop you from allowing them to see the warts and all you, because you are never going to go back there.

And the reason why this is so hard to do, so hard, that it is an almost impossible thing to do is because all of the others are physical, they are momentarily. Sure you can dance for five minutes and pretend you are happy, you can sing at the top of your voice for three minutes, you can go through the motions of living, because they are all things that you can project to the world, but loving as if you have never been hurt, is an emotional thing, a thing that you know, that your head knows, that your heart knows, that every fibre in your being knows making it impossible to love as if you have never been hurt.

I have thought of one final one, that should be added to this Irish saying.........

Die as if you were living........