When I was five, I ran the full length of the dusty church parking lot six or more times. Sweaty, breathless, bright-eyed and heaving while wiping palms on my dirty dress, my uncle stopped me in my tracks and asked me to place a hand over my chest. The fast-paced thuds pounding inside my chest, as I looked at my beaming Uncle in sheer discovery, wonder and inquisition, were the doings of my heart.

When I was fifteen, I met a boy who would ride the high school taxi with me daily. He was the brightest boy in Math class. During our first week back to school after the holidays, he insisted I give him a high-five by the hallway one afternoon. He got involved in a tragic road accident later that day and passed away. He was only seventeen.

When I was seventeen, I sat under a university shed and turned my gaze into the sky. The clouds were moving far quicker than my eyes could adjust. In that moment, I thought of how speedily time flew by and an unsettling and conscious understanding dawned upon me. I would never re-live a moment quite like that ever again.

When I was nineteen, I fell in love with a boy. He had the clearest set of brown eyes and a smile that could convince you to jump off a skyscraper. He took away parts of me I hadn’t realized were important. Parts of me that made me, me. His approval of me, aligned the stars in my world but gradually made me forget who I was, and we grew apart.

So then what is life?

Life to me is the conscious and inextricable state of being. It is in the awareness that we feel when we love, learn, grow and laugh. It is in the kindness we share through hugs, and the smiles that we share when our hearts are filled with fondness. It is in the strife that we go through when things don’t go well. It is in the fears we harbor when we are in a stump. It is in the hope that we hold onto when we envision a better tomorrow.

It is in the warmth we feel in the wisdom of the elderly. It is in our youthfulness and vigor. It is the air circulating inside our lungs, and the strength in our muscles that allows us to run. It is being present in the ever-changing seasons of our livelihoods.

It is in the loss of losing a loved one and of missing opportunities. It is the loss of not being able to rewind the hands of time to re-live the moments that pass before us in a miniscule of time. It is in being in a valley of despair, distress, losing oneself, grief and even hopelessness. It is in the joy of seeing the sun illuminate on you whilst in this pit. When a friend offers you their hand out of the pit or when you finally see the ladder to a brighter tomorrow.

Life is interconnected. It is the belonging of one in a community. It is the systems that guide us, the morals that shape us, the values that give us our identities. It is all the emotions and the raptures of joy and sorrow that we mirror from one another. It is in the friends we keep and the families we belong to. It is short.

As I come to the understanding of how short life is, I choose to enrich the lives of those around me. I will cheer those I love along the way and remember to reset, restart and renew whatever I can salvage. I will seek to grow with a compassionate understanding that growth may at times be fast, and other times quite slow. I will choose to be more fearless, loving and kind. I will appreciate and wear all the vast colors of life that bind people together. I will be present.

For when all is said and done, I hope to look at life someday and smile because by having enriched the lives of those around me, I would have enriched my life too.