Measring Life.

Ok, you'll have to bear with me for a moment or two while I get to my point in quite a round-a-bout way.

A few days ago I was walking back home up the not-so-steep hill (as in Potter's Bank) and just about half way up there was a derelict house that got bulldozed earlier this week. We all got abit of a shock when we first saw the pile of rubble with a digger sitting motionless ontop like an eagle protecting it's recent kill. Poor house, it was very sad. Just the other day as I was walking past it, I started thinking about what it would be like to lose a house unintentionally as it were. What about if my house just fell down, or burnt up, or someone stole everything from inside... I don't really think I'm much of a materialistic person, I don't put a great deal of importance on possessions (anyone who's seen the relatively small amount of stuff I own could guess that!) but how would I feel if everything was gone? I thought of Elliot from Scrubs who has the van with all of her things in it stolen. She says to JD that it's just stuff and it doesn't matter, but when he goes round to see her he realises she was just too upset to say the truth. That to her it wasn't just stuff, it was her whole life.

But how do you measure a whole life in just stuff? If someone who didn't know me looked through all of my things, would they get an idea of what kind of person I am? I remember when I first got to Mary's last year. I was in a shared room and my roommate wasn't there but all her things were unpacked. Me and my Dad looked around to see if we could find anything out about her, we discovered she was Chinese (from photos) and was small (from a pair of jeans on her bed) and that she had tons of stuff (she had 3 big suitcases). Anyone who's met Vivian will know that this is a rubbish description of her because although she is all of those things, that isn't how I would describe her. She's one of the loveliest people I've ever met and a few material possessions could never express that. I like to think that I would be ok if for whatever reason I lost all of my things one day. I can't say I wouldn't be upset, I don't know how I would react. But in my life there are so many more important things to me than how many pairs of jeans I have, or how many books I have, or what kind of laptop I have. Although my journals are a bit different... when I was younger I used to leave them all in a pile on the floor every night in case there was a fire, then I could chuck them out of the window. I feel like some of the most important events of my life are in those books and I would be heartbroken to ever lose them.

My point then, eventually reached, was to ask how you would measure your life? How do you quantify your existence? By the number of achievements? failures? boyfriends? holidays? grades? friends? money? possessions? I never used to understand that bit in the Bible that says to store treasure in heaven because everything on earth will eventually rot or fade away. I didn't understand any kind of treasure other then expensive material goods. But what I think it means is make sure you don't ever define yourself by what you have. You should always define yourself by who you are. It's difficult sometimes. I remember hearing a song, I'm going to put the lyrics at the end, when I was in Canada. It's called Seasons of Love and doesn't completely explain what I'm trying to say, but it talks about how you would measure a year. I thought this was interesting. How would I 'measure' a Year In The Life Of Kat? The song gives the following options... daylight, midnights, sunsets, cups of coffee, inches, miles, laughter or strife... are any of those things that I could measure my life with?

I don't really know. I think so, sometimes I think about a particular year and remember that there seemed to be alot of hard things, or good things, or upsetting things. Have you ever seen Hercules? The people of Thebes are lamenting how aweful their existence is, recalling the earthquake, the flood, the fire, that they're bound to get a plague of locusts next their luck is that bad! But that's such a negative way of looking at things! I know that the 'point' (if there ever really was one) of this blog has kind of drifted, to be honest I'm just typing and seeing where it goes! But I think that the point is something like this: to make sure that no matter what happens in life, we don't lose sight of what really matters, the things that we really do define ourselves by, and the things that we really can't live without. Sometimes it's easy to take very good care of material possessions and forget that they don't give us anything in return. They don't make us who we are.

Anyway, this sounded better in my head than it does on screen! Here's the song all the same: (oh and it is dead cheesy so be prepared!!!)

five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
how do you measure? measure a year

in daylights,
in sunsets,
in midnights,
in cups of coffee,
in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife

in five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
how do you measure a year in a life?

how about love?
how about love?
how about love?
measure in love...
seasons of love...
seasons of love...

(female soloist)
five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
five hundred twenty five thousand journeys to plan
five hundred twenty five thousand suix hundred minutes
how do you measure a life of a woman or a man

(male soloist)
in truths that she learned
or in times that she cried
in bridges he burned
or the way that she died

(all)
its time now to sing out though
the story never ends
let's celebrate remember a year in a life
of friends

remember the love...
(oh you gotta remember the love)
remember the love...
(oh yeah, its a gift from up above)
remember the love...
(sing out, give out, measure your life
in looooooove...!!!)
seasons of love...
seasons of love...