Live like you were dying.

I can’t sleep. It’s 3:30am and I have to be up in 3.5 hours to take a test that could change my life. Or maybe instead, the test is meant to help me start living life. My mom has said of her cancer experience, “You don’t really start living until you realize you might die.” And as I toss and turn in my bed, I started thinking about all the things I keep putting off, or never done, or too afraid to do, that I’d like to do in the next year.

I want to go to Paris.
I want to run a marathon.
I want to feel snow falling on me.
I want to watch the sun come up.
I want to get a new puppie.
I want to take a road trip.
I want to go camping.
I want to fall in love.

Or maybe I can’t sleep because of the bed I’m sleeping in. Tonight I spent the night at my parents house because they will be driving me to the hospital in the morning, and I’m sleeping in my old room in my old bed with my old memories and old dreams of the old me. I remember picking out this bed when we moved into this house my senior year of high school. It’s crazy to think that was almost 10 years ago and all the seasons that have changed from then to now. All the TV shows and movies I watched in this bed. All the long time talks with my mom I’ve had in this bed. All the tears I’ve cried in this bed. All the laughs I’ve had in this bed. All the friends that once sat on this bed. All the nights I worried Rhett would fall off this bed when he was a puppy. All the dreams I dreamt in this bed, both in my sleep and in reality. All the phone conversations I’ve had in this bed. All the moments of life I wasted worrying in this bed about what the future holds when I should have been embracing the moment I was given right then.

I used to change the channel anytime Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying” came on because it just hit too close to everything my mom was going through at the time. But now for some reason, I can’t get it out of my head. So I thought I would post the video for you.