Life Goes By Too Quickly.

I've been thinking a lot around this holiday season about love and friendship and sharing time with the people you care about most. I like to think that I'm able to do that, and that I make the time I need to make for the people who I care about and who I feel care about me too. Of course, that being said, not everyone has this luxury. While I always tend to gear my more serious posts towards LGBTQ rights as I have strong ties to it's fight and I always seem to feel the need to raise awareness about it's ever glaring neglect, I don't mean to say that there aren't other people facing injustice in the world either, so please forgive me if I veer off onto a tangent, I will get back to my point. 

While I loathe the song, "Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid, really raises a question that not many people think about while indulging in chocolate and obsessively collecting Christmas lights and little houses to place all over the mantel. There is a world outside your warm house with that big Christmas tree. There is a world full of hungry people, sick people, lonely people, and some of these people are people you know, people in your town, sitting on your street corner or in the apartment down the hall. While Band Aid was trying to make a point about Africa, and raise money for them, it's not only about Africa. It's about helping the people in your own backyard too. I think that it's important to give this holiday season even more than you take. If you give more than you get, it really does make a difference in the way you see the season.

I lost a friend this past Tuesday to cancer, and I truly wish that I had had one more chance to tell him how amazing he was, and given him one last handshake and a smile to let him know he changed and touched my life in his own special way. If there is a better place, I have no doubt that he is there. He was a great man, and I will miss his smiles and kind words dearly. This loss really got me thinking about life, and how short it is. In a season where we spend so much time happy, laughing and content with our family and friends (despite our popsicle cars and fingers), there are people out there with nothing, and people facing hate and anger in a way many of us can't even possibly understand. And there are people losing battles, and leaving their friends and family behind - and I don't just mean cancer battles. My friend brought so many people together, and his memorial is going to be packed full of not only people who loved him so much, but filled with people who love each other so much. His memorial will be in the spirit of the season, bringing people together to share love, and I know this to be true. This holiday season, I will remember to send his partner even more love than usual, because he doesn't deserve to be alone on Christmas, and he won't be.

This is a shirt I have every intention on purchasing. It describes exactly how I feel at this moment, and it gives a whole new meaning to LGBTQ. I think life goes by too quickly not to live your life the way that makes you happy. I think that you need to concern yourself with your business, and if other people are doing something you don't believe in, that you realize that there is a good chance you're doing something they don't believe in either. I think life goes by too quickly for us to hate so much, and that there is too much in this world to experience to waste your time caring about whether people are gay or straight, or black or white, or male or female... If you're seriously wasting your life away hating people for something uncontrollable, you are just not even close to understanding the meaning of why you are here. How about you put your hate toward the fact that there are starving and abused children in the world, or that there are people dieing from cancer and AIDS? Or why don't you put your hate toward the fact that the family down the street can't afford to have Christmas like you can? Why don't you channel that hate, and use it towards making someone's season brighter, instead of making other people's darker with your misguided hatred? Go spend some time at that homeless shelter you pass on the way to work, or drop off some money to your SPCA. Sponsor a child this Christmas, or donate that jacket you'll never wear to a coat drive, or write a letter to the damn U.N. telling them you think it's unacceptable there are still suffering people in this world of materialistic waste. You'll be amazed at how good you feel doing something amazing for someone else this Christmas instead of ruining the season for those people you don't like for what ever reason it is.

I am desperately trying to be a postive person, when I know that sometimes I'm not, and this season I plan on taking my advice and spreading the love and joy of the season not only for myself, but in the memory of my lost friend, who would have spread so much joy this Christmas had he been able to see it.

Life
Goes
By
Too
Quickly.

Please don't forget that. 

RIP Bryce.


Blog, and be happy.

Kyleigh.