CARPE DIEM

Today was a crying-at-my-desk, heavy boots kind of day. 

I spent a whirlwind, amazing 72 hours in Portland, Oregon two weeks ago. I made new friends, including Brett. Brett was probably one of the funniest guys I've ever met. Which I concede is a major call. But as he workshopped in real time - en masse and circa bonfire - various text messages he was sending to a girl he had just met with us for three hysterical hours, he not only validated my suspicion that boys are as prone to over-analysis as girls are, but elicited the realisation that I was in the presence of comedic greatness. After the dinner/bonfire, the above photoshoot took place. Below right features me losing it immediately after Brett attempted to photobomb us. He is pictured fourth from the left.

Late this afternoon I was slapped by the news that Brett died yesterday. While on the very church camp he had mentioned eagerly anticipating as we demolished a very high stack of $5 nachos a fortnight ago. He drowned while attempting to rescue one of the kids who had slipped and fallen into the falls they were visiting. 

...Surely not? 

Surely one operating with such a high-functioning level of joie de vivre dying at the age of 26 violates every unwritten law of the universe? Humans aren't meant to die at 26. Not in real life. I mean, he was planning to come to New Zealand for a fortnight in February with a couple of others, and had liked one of my facebook photos only two days ago. It's unthinkable. 

I'm going to ignore the tears pooling on my keyboard as I get this down. I'm not part of Brett's immediate community. I'm a foreign correspondent, who knew him for a matter of days. I'm not able to be there and grieve with others who knew him, and swap stories about bantering Mulan quotes a few margaritas in, or his pride in his ability to take the perfect "girl" shot ("it's all about the downwards angle..."). So I'm doing the most comforting thing I can think to do... I'm writing it down.

How is it possible that his life so impressed upon mine in a few short days that I am grief-stricken on the other side of the world? Well that's just the thing with friends, whether new or old. Today's news prompted such a depth of response that it has caused me to question how it is that we gauge others' ability to affect us. The human heart is a tricksy little valve if ever there was one. We are wired to bounce off one another. And after four months' traveling, and myriad conversations with strangers, some of whom became friends, I can attest that it only takes one day, one chance encounter, or one conversation to quite literally change your life, and even its trajectory. 

After our wee photoshoot as above, we stumbled upon a very drunk man, or rather, both literally and figuratively, he stumbled upon us. He then proceeded to rant about #YOLO (or "You Only Live Once" for you rock-dwellers, and which I'm assured is just "carpe diem for idiots") and upon leaving, said Happy Drunkard threw his hands up at me, Brett and friends and said "I LOVE YOUR LIVES!". We then spent the rest of the week laughing and hashtagging YOLO wherever we went. Because we are post-post-ironic like that.

Had we known what lay ahead, I'm sure we would've been less casual about it. If anything, that phrase will now simply haunt me for a really long time. I suppose because it is true. Painfully true.

Someone's premature death always serves as a plea to the rest of us to use our breath of a time here well. What would the world look like if there were 6.8 billion of me running around? Would it be a good place? I'd like to think it would be more utopia than dystopia. Then some days I'm not so sure. Am I simply highlighting the darkness, or seeking to diminish it? Could I even be contributing to it? Are my words, my creativity, my conversations, adding to the darkness and hopelessness? Or am I somehow contributing a different voice?

There's nothing like an abrupt reminder of your own mortality to spark a philosophical stocktake of your entire existence. Maybe we should ask ourselves hard questions more often. Maybe encountering Brett and his insane zest for life, and truth, was a gift I was incredibly lucky to receive.

Maybe we only live once. 

And maybe we'll be held to account for how we do it.