paul simon > art garfunkel

it asked me to title this something and i had nothing so i went with a random thought inside my head. art garfunkel should be thanking his lucky stars for paul simon and his crazy song writing ability. i don't even know if art is alive though so if he isn't...i apologize for being insensitive. but still. paul simon. love.

it is 9:41pm on thursday. i leave to go out of town at 9am. i haven't packed a thing. i haven't done the 20 things on my professional 'get done before you go' list. i still need to run an errand tonight. but i'm sitting here blogging because there's nothing i love more than unpreparedness. 

i really really do need to pack. but i just wanted to take a minute to tell you a story.

i've always been mouthy. i say what i want, when i want, to whom i want. i think it's one of my most endearing qualities. :)

2 years ago, right around this time, i said some things to someone. some pretty mean things. totally out of anger. i could tell you that since they were out of anger, i didn't mean them at all but that's not really true. i meant a little of it but since i was mad, i was ugly.

one of the things that i said to this person, or more accurately, about this person was that he had "virtually nothing going for him." out of all the things i said, i instantly felt bad for saying that. the thought of someone saying that about me makes me feel pretty low. it was an unfair statement & an inaccurate one.

i didn't see him for a few weeks after that. then one saturday, i saw him by chance and i got to apologize for what i said. he apologized for some things too.

awesome story huh?

well 8 days later, he died.

unexpectedly. 27 years old. died.

and i promise you - after the initial shock, all i could think about for weeks was what i said. there are few things in this world that i am more grateful for than the opportunity i had to apologize. now i know he doesn't care. he's free from the cares of this world, including what a punk girl like me said. but i care. and i carry the weight of that. the weight of my words. frankly, it was a nasty thing to say and it is something i am still ashamed of.

i still fail miserably at this but it really has made me watch my words. watch to make sure the hateful ones are limited and the loving ones plentiful. whether someone is 27 or 97, the chance of never seeing them again is higher than i'd like so i try to make sure they know i love them. and even when i'm angry, i try to not be spiteful. i don't ever want to feel that way again. knowing that without running into him on that saturday, that the last things i said about/to him were hateful. not a good feeling.

our mouths have more power than we'd like to admit. we can use that power to build up or to tear down.

consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark...