Juxtaposition: Gazing out the window, filled with hope, excitement, fear, uncertainty, as one door closes and another opens. Sitting on your bed, while a compassionate nurse places a wig on your head to cover the spot where hair once grew – while friends and siblings lightly rub their own, now bald, heads. Making room in your closet by removing clothes and toys that you no longer use, while a single mother of 4, waits for you to finish filling the bags, so she can take “Christmas gifts” home and wrap them for her children. Running in your first marathon and crossing the finish line several minutes ahead of your goal time, then turning to see what everyone is cheering at, and realizing it is a blind father pushing his leg-less son across the finish line right behind you. The son does for the father, just as the father does for the son – they are the missing pieces in each other’s lives.
Life is quite the juxtaposition.
We spend much of our lives, working to attain “more” of what we do not use now. All the while, there is someone, probably much closer than we realize, who is waiting, begging, praying, for just a morsel of what we leave lying on the ground. Food goes uneaten, yet people are starving. Homes sit empty, while many homeless men and women sleep on park benches. Expensive cars are purchased, because our current car isn’t “flashy” enough, while a single father takes the bus across town to pick his little girl up from school, because his fifteen year old car is broken down and in the shop. People try to blur the lines into black and white confusion, while there is color all around us, clearly in view, just waiting to be appreciated and noticed. Mothers and fathers work endless hours at the office, to make more money to lavish on their children, while their kids cry for their parents to tuck them in bed with a story, each night. We live in a society where “more” is “more”. Satisfaction can’t be bought for any price, no matter how much money you have. The ladder of success is endless, where each rung you climb, takes you no higher than you were before.
People who are dying, wish for more time in their life, to say and do the things they always “meant to”, but never did/said. All the while, people who are alive and well, waste their life away on achieving a level of perfection that is never to be reached. We complain about losing in love, yet we never realize love isn’t looking for US. Love doesn’t need us. WE need LOVE. Love should be a verb, and instead, we sometimes unwillingly, make it a noun. It becomes nothing more than a “thing”, a “place” we are trying to find, a “person” we think personifies what love is, to us. The thing is, love is different for everyone, yet always the same.
Yes, life is, simply put, a juxtaposition.
No one ever entered a dark room and said “the darkness won!” Instead, upon switching the light on, if no light fills the room, we say “Oh man! The light bulb died” or something similar. Often, the darkness of the world, takes over our own personal light. Don’t give in to the darkness. Be the light someone needs in their life.
Think often, speak seldom. Love always, hate never. Accept everyone, deny no one.
In a world full of questions, seek out the answers. There may be many, or sometimes only one.
Don’t give in to the chaos around you. Be the resolve desperately needed, but seldom sought after.
Juxtaposition: “1. An act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast. 2. The state of being close together or side by side.