After a few minutes I started flipping through one of the several magazines laying about the table and flipped open to a photo spread of Soldiers in Afghanistan. I thought to myself, the photographer was really good, and how I really wished I could be over there right now doing the same thing as this photographer. I looked down to see who the photographer was — Lynsey Addario.
Addario has made a name for herself since the start of the Iraq war as a photojournalist and I had a chance while I was deployed to meet and work with her. Most notably, she borrowed one of my camera batteries and never returned it, which I never thought of as too much more than just one of those things that happen in combat.
But then it hit me — my friend was somewhere inside this hospital, not sure what was going wrong, in terrible pain, a strong possibility her heart was finally getting to her, and below me an accomplished photographer, someone I actually knew and had met, out there doing her thing. And what was I doing? Where was I? Was I doing what really inspired me? Not really sure I liked the mirror reflection much, not because it was a lie or anything, the exact opposite. It was a truth laid bare, of how far of my mark I'd strayed.
See, none of us know when our card is about to be punched. There are so many things out there just waiting to take our life; from the purposeful, to the accidental, to our clocks just expiring. All of us, whether we like it or not, are living on borrowed time and the measure of a life is what we do from the moment we are born to the time they lay us in the grave.
I’ve got a feeling I’m going to start changing some things, start working just a bit harder towards those goals I lost somewhere along the way. How about you?
Article comments
1 - A Geek Girl
I can relate to this on so many levels. Thank you Benjamin, for reminding me of the promises I have not been keeping--to myself.