The human "experience"

MEREDITH: [narrating] "The early bird catches the worm; a stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we haven't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to ‘seize the day'. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore, until we finally understand for ourselves like Benjamin Franklin meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping. And that even the biggest failure, even the worst most intractable mistake beats the hell out of never trying." -(Grey's Anatomy Season 1, Episode 6)

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Why did I think I was too cool for Grey's Anatomy before this point? Because I regret this decision immensely, and am now currently obsessed. Hence the quote above.... just bear with me for a bit though because it really touches on something that I have been rolling around in my head now for a while...

 Think about this for a minute: have you ever felt an emotion so intensely that you feel it in the tips of your fingers, the tip of your nose? Emotion just consuming your entire body, filling you all the way up, until you feel ready to pop? Ever been that passionate about something, loved so deeply, laughed so hard, been so alive??! 

This weekend someone told me that I live my life "at volume 100" and we laughed a little about how intense I can be sometimes... but when I replied with "why not??! What is the point of living any less than that... I mean why not experience every moment? Because you never know if you are going to be around for tomorrow. You never know if you'll get another chance to live this one moment, have this experience, feel this alive." And the car went silent. It was such an "Olivia" thing to say, but still, they all knew it was TOO true. Roll your eyes all you want- but you know you want to live at volume 100, too. 

And while Meredith Grey is clearly fictional (although I wish McDreamy wasn't, haha!!), her message rings so true in my head and it is so everything I have been trying to do with my life recently. I want to FEEL, I want to DO, I want to BE. Because this is my one chance to get this life right (and who knows what is waiting for us on the other side.) Live, really live, while you can. If there is music, I am going to dance and if there are people, I am going to laugh. 

But through it all I am going to FEEL, I am going to DO, and I am going to BE. 

And geez, it's not just about feeling happiness, because in this human experience there is going to be pain and there is going to be hurt. Why do you think it is called the human "experience??" Dip your hands into everything and gain as much of it as you can. Expose your heart to the world and let it be touched by those around you, for better or for worse. It's like this song I heard the other day that I am in love with currently by the Lumineers (go look them up really...) called "Stubborn Love" where they sing "it's better to feel pain, than nothing at all, the opposite of love's indifference." Pain is not the opposite of love but rather a different form of it. To be hurt is to love, because if there was no love, no connection to another, then, well, there would just be nothing. And that's what should worry us: that nothingness. Not pain. Not hurt. Because to be hurt is to know that we loved and were loved. To be connected to another and to this life. In the end it is passion or it is nothing at all. 

I cannot imagine living a life of nothingness. Of passing pleasantries. Of could've beens or regrets. I want passion more than I have ever wanted anything in my entire life. I want to be around others who love life with everything they have. Who live so hard that it shoots straight out their fingertips and into my outstretched hand. Even if it means crying at bars and making fools of ourselves dancing to Aretha Franklin alone on the dance floor. Even if it means exposing my tender heart to the elements, not knowing if it will bask in the sunshine or endure the craziest hurricane this side of the Mississippi. But knowing that either way, I will have no regrets because I TRIED. 

And I don't regret living my life all the way turned up. I mean, it does get pretty intense sometimes, but geez, I feel more alive now than I ever have before. I never want to just do "enough"or be "enough" again. You will find me living at the edge of this human experience for the rest of my life. Always pushing my boundaries. Going further than I ever thought possible. Loving and laughing harder. Learning more. Being more. Experiencing more. 

So here is your typical "Olivia" send off: get out there and FEEL and DO and BE. Never settle. Let regrets be a thing of your past. And let your life get a little messy every once in a while for the sake of experience. For the sake of growth. For the sake of passion. For the sake of living life turned all the way up. 

Liv

When we were young, Oh Oh, we did enough
When it got cold, Ooh Ooh, we bundled up
I cant be told, Ah Ah It cant be done

It‘s better to feel pain, than nothing at all
The opposite of love‘s indifference
Pay attention now, I‘m standing on your porch screaming out
And I wont leave until you come downstairs- "Stubborn Love" The Lumineers