The Dash.

I was watching television last night, and heard someone talk about "living the dash."

 

The dash: that small mark between the day you were born, and the day that you die.

 

1983 - ?

 

I can't stop thinking about that small little mark... that is so much.

It's LIFE.

 

I have this crazy obsession about visiting old cemeteries.

I think it's the historical part about it.

There are so many headstones there.

I like to see how old the headstones are... and how long people lived.

(So, I realize this sounds morbid... yikes.)

 

I never thought about that dash before.

These aren't just dead people, but people that lived once.

There was life there.

There was a story there.

A history of the person.

 

My grandparents that have died, had a life.

A life before I was born.

A life with my parents.

A life of happiness, sadness, pride, joy, despair...

 

But still, a life.

They lived their dash.

 

I have had selfish thoughts before.

The times that I wanted to put an ending to that dash.

The times when my sadness overtook any happiness in my dash.

The times when I just couldn't go on.

The people that were making my dash dark...

The moments that made me want the world to disappear.

 

I can't decide my own ending.

It will happen when it's time.

I need to live for that dash...

So that when (creepy, morbid people like myself... ha) visit my gravesite 100 years from now, will think, wow, I wonder what her dash was all about.

 

That small mark. That dash. It makes a mark on my own life, and all that I encounter.

 

I'm really going to start living my dash.

Whether small, or big.

I'll make my mark where it matters.

 

Melissa