We spend our lives on the imaginary verge of enormous change.

And we do. Each and every day is wrought with circumstances that threaten to overwhelm us. They will kick your feet out from underneath you and sit on your chest, crushing the last vestiges of hope and happiness from your lungs and life. They are undeniable. They are certain. They are inevitable. They will alter us profoundly and in ways that we are unprepared to handle.

And yet, they never quite do…

We persevere. We rebound. We move forward. We are better able to appreciate the good things in our lives because we’ve had a brief taste of life without them.

There will be a life time of love and change. School will get better. There will be days without stress. There will be soccer. There will be weekends and there will be days off.

Live in today. It may not be great, but appreciate it just the same. And when today fades into yesterday, walk into tomorrow knowing that you are filled with the capacity to live a better day and appreciate it more fully because you’ve seen the other side of the coin.

To quote Jason Lee’s character from Vanilla Sky: “The sweet is never as sweet without the sour, and I know the sour.”