"Getting Feeled Up"

What you value is what you miss, and not what you have.
but what if you miss what you do have...
is it just that you didn't know you really had it... or is it that you didn't ever really have it?

Until I turned 18, I played some sport or the other pretty much every day of my life.... yeah, i played sports as a baby.. I practiced tasting my toes every day of my first year!
I loved "play-time".. .every single day from 5-7, I'd go shoot hoops, hit balls, stop pucks or chase frisbees or whatever the sport of the season was.
It was my most cherished part of the day (that, and 7pm on ice cream nights, but that's a separate story)..
and my mom knew that.
which is why if i ever really misbehaved, I was grounded.. from 5-7...
That was enough..
I'd squirm and wince, and display symptoms that would make the Chinese Water Torture look like eating candy floss!
I knew what I had.. and how I'd lost it.. and I missed it.

and now that I'm "all grow'd up", I miss the times when i could just go for a couple of hours and play.

What does a person really miss? You miss what you once had.. and crave what you perhaps never did.
But does that mean you don't really value what you have?
I don't think so.

They say cherish what you have, because you dont really know what you have until its gone.
Well, I'm reminded of that every single Sunday morning when I wakeup with a splitting headache.. and wonder... "where did my hangover recovery abilities go"
and everytime I have a burrito, and almost instantly my pants get tighter.. and i wonder..
"where did my metabolism go"..

and so i've taught myself to appreciate all the good things that I might be fortunate to have had or will have... because you never know when they will go away.
The sight of water in Southern California... the cool breeze of summer.... the beginning of baseball season...
these are all things that make me happy.. and then just as soon, they go away..

and every now and then i wonder... what would it take to have something that makes me happy..for keeps...
maybe like being part of something that is not as fleeting as the seasonal sights... something that last longer than a wave on the beach...
it could be a lifelong profession that you wake up excited every morning for
it could be a lasting friendship that you go to bed every night ecstatic about
it could be something material... it could be something abstract..
it could be a memory... it could be a lot of memories...
It could be all of the above...it could be none of the above
its just a feeling..
..
one that equips you to handle the curveballs of life... cuz you know..you got that feeling..

and regardless of how long or shortlived that feeling is.. you just have to believe, that it'll be forever..
but even if it doesn't, did you at least remember to live through it believing that it would?

Maybe its just the optimist in me...
When you look back at your life, you choose to remember the vivid moments...and memories..

and a lot of times its the smaller things in life that give you that feeling... because they remind you of what you really value.. and cherish..

and I love that feeling..

The feeling I get...when I see my runaway alarm clock, much to the chagrin of my stubbed toes
The feeling I get...when I see a dried up fern, preserved ever so beautifully
The feeling I get...when I see that spiral shaped, syrup soaked orange colored delicacy ...

ahh.. when i get that feeling....

-Canuck "Marvin Gaye" Engineer