This post was originally published on the My Peacetree blog. Read more about these archives.
Last Tuesday evening, I was in a car accident. I remember the headlights coming straight towards me, growing alarmingly larger.
Miraculously, I’m not seriously injured. I walked away with a small scrape and several bruises, but the reality of it is that I was quite literally two feet away from death: the car crashed into the front right wheel well, a very short distance from where I was sitting in the front passenger seat.
It is this thought that is slowly growing to recognition in my mind – how by such narrow margins I’m walking, talking, and breathing today – and, to be honest, it’s incredibly difficult to wrap my head around. I’ve lost two close friends in the past few years, and another sweet friend recently had her own awakening to mortality. I am finding that I am more deeply saddened by these experiences than my own, and this surprises me.
Life is a funny thing. We grow so comfortable in our bodies and with the tiny details in our lives: the routine of coffee in the morning, the uncertainty of picking out the perfect outfit for a night out, the hustle to finish a project before a deadline. These little things become so important to us and often become the main focus of our lives; it’s so easy to forget how enormous the Universe is and how beautiful the world is.
We forget to enjoy food, music, and art as if it were the first time we were experiencing it. We forget how incredibly lucky we are to be here, experiencing this: with all its ups and downs, bad hair days, sadnesses and sufferings and mistakes, life is a grand adventure, filled with the most amazing things and the most lovely people.
Our mere existence is more wondrous than we could ever imagine.
Today I invite you to look at the world with new eyes and consider, no matter your circumstances, how magnificent it is to be alive.