A recent birthday has me reflecting on how fortunate I am just to be alive

I think most people have certain days where they are just in a pissy mood and it seems like everything in the world is designed to get under their skin. I know I have those days pretty regularly when faced with crowded streets, traffic, construction noise and the overall just noisy atmosphere that is common in Vietnam.

I also get annoyed at the tedious and repetitive nature of my job and sometimes wonder why the hell I keep doing it.

I will also look at how my aches and pains are starting to increase with age and how I feel sorry for myself on a regular basis simply because I have a backache just from sleeping or lying on the sofa in an odd position.

These little annoyances build up over time and every now and then I just get angry at my life... That is, until I take a bit of time to recognize how wonderfully blessed I am to be in the position I am in.

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I will admit that I do some hippy stuff like meditate whenever I am having a rough day and I actually find this very therapeutic. It gives me a moment to reflect without distractions on things that are annoying me and it is something that I highly recommend to other people.

I recently had a birthday and without revealing too much let's just say that I am now closer to 50 than I am to 40 years of age. Sometimes this annoys me but then while I was lamenting this I got to thinking about there are many people that I went to high school and college with that are no longer alive.

Jennifer

One of my best friends in high school was a girl named Jennifer. I don't remember exactly how we met but we would hang out and get coffee and smoke cigarettes and do stuff that we probably should have saved for when we were older. We would do this very frequently for hours at a time and never got tired of one another's company. It was never a romantic thing, it was just a person that I could confide in about literally anything. She was an amazing friend and someone that I hold very dear in my heart throughout the years. When I moved overseas we kind of lost touch as you would expect. 12,000 miles is a long ways and we would only talk every now and then. She did the traditional thing of getting married and having a baby and had what appeared to be the "perfect for her" life. Then one day she started getting headaches and eventually went to the hospital where she died from an aneurism. Turns out she had brain cancer and that was causing the headaches. She was the youngest of 11 children (crazy I know) and she is not the first one of her family to die prematurely. Two of her brothers who I barely knew have also kicked the proverbial bucket earlier than hoped. She was the 2nd to go.

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Ryan

Then there is Ryan. Ryan was a close friend of mine in high school as well. Ryan came from a troubled family and I never knew his parents. All I knew was that they didn't really give a shit about Ryan. Ryan would regularly not be at school until a CPS worker started forcing him to go. He would be out all night long if he wanted to and never really wanted to go home. Ryan would regularly hang out at my house and was very kind to my younger siblings to the point where I could say that they really loved him. My parents could see the writing on the wall and asked Ryan if he wanted a sandwich and my mom would pretend that this was just something that my family does every afternoon even though it isn't. She could tell that Ryan was hungry because his family didn't so much as provide him with food.

Ryan never had much of a chance in life but eventually he did graduate from high-school the same year that I did. My family was there as was Jennifer to celebrate my graduation. Ryan didn't have anyone attend. Neither of his parents could be asked to even turn up. My family invited him to my party and we made it a dual-celebration. I think Ryan was really grateful for that. Years later Ryan contacted me on messenger and I could tell he was a bit down. He had a working-man's job at a ski resort in Colorado at this point and I could tell in the way that he was speaking that he wasn't feeling the greatest. I talked to him but now look back and wonder if there was something I could have said that would have changed his mind a bit. I could have invited him to Thailand where I was living at the time and helped him to love what I love about being over there. Instead though, looking back, I think I might have actually been bragging unintentionally a bit too much. Ryan hung himself about a week later. That still sticks with me to this day.

April

Then there is April. April was a girl I met on a traveling job I had after college. April was a very pretty, very kind, very interesting girl and we started dating. Her family really liked me and were really happy and welcoming because finally April was dating someone that wasn't just some do-nothing, going-nowhere in life loser. I saw her as often as I could but since I had a traveling job it wasn't as often as I would have liked. I contemplated quitting my job and getting a job that didn't travel so we could properly be together. Fate had other things in mind though.

For about a week April was complaining about a really bad flu that she had and like everyone else I just wanted her to take time off of work and rest. Aprils still lived with her parents so one day her mom insisted that she go to the hospital after she was not getting better. The doctor took one look at her and demanded she be taken by helicopter to a more advanced hospital. April died from bacterial meningitis a day later. There isn't really anything they can do for you when that disease gets advanced so while my story is tragic, if you find yourself with flu-like symptoms that keep getting worse for more than say 4 days, go to a doctor and get tested for this because if it gets too far, there is nothing any doctor in the world can do for you.

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Just from the things I am aware of there are 4 friends of mine that have died in car accidents as well. I don't need to go into details about that. I knew 2 people that died in motorcycle crashes in Thailand and several people that have died from disease that was left untreated in Thailand as well.

This all sounds really morose and I get that but the real message here is that when life gets me down I sometimes need to count my blessings that I actually am alive. There are so many people that I knew that never had that chance. So many people that were struck down because of very bad circumstances, bad genetics, or just terrible luck. I think it is important to reflect on these good fortunes as often as possible and maybe be a bit more thankful than I am or we are on a regular basis. Just think about how incredibly unlikely that it is that you exist at all and even more unlikely that you maintain good health. Be thankful and perhaps spread some of that happiness to other people as often as you can.