Living via life's lessons

I just got off the phone with Randon. Things are convoluted between us, and nothing is as it seems. Somehow, through all the garbage we are still the very best of friends. He knows me far better than anyone else, and I know him far better than anyone else. We have come to realize over the years that we need each other for our mutual understanding and love, and are obviously not willing to do without each other until there is an actual reason to do so... like a ring on some girl's finger. Like it or not, approve or not, that's just the way it is and obviously neither of us are willing to change it. That being said, that's not the point of this post. The reason I mention it is because tonight we had another long conversation, that was not about the things we had previously discussed discussing(which happens an awful lot lately. There is just too much to say), and I want to mention some things I have fairly recently discovered in conversing about our lives. I have been thinking a lot lately about finding the Life in life and loving it. I have tried over the last several months to figure out what really makes me happy and have found things that do and things that don't. Real vs. fake. Randon comes in here because he already knows what makes me happy and is always trying to encourage me in those things and discourage me from the things that make me unhappy. He has seen what course in my life leads me to both. He gives me constant encouraging, strength, and an endless supply of advice. Lately, I have found a greater measure of happiness and an increased love in life and for life. Something I have found myself saying frequently about various experiences, both good and bad, is this. I want to experience life... all of it. In Heaven there are many negative things we cannot ever experience. We cannot experience the pain of a skinned knee, a frostbitten nose, sweltering heat, being lied to by the person you trust most, being gossiped about, rejected, and many many other things we experience here. Those are only Earth experiences. Ones that through the duration of eternity we will never experience again. Going through them is often hard and are things I wish I never had to feel, but they are for here, for our experience, for us to experience. I try to remember that this is my chance to experience negative things, and try then to be grateful to have experienced the Life in life. Loving the bad parts can be harder in the moment than in hindsight. Sometimes in hindsight I can easily see how God was protecting me from something I didn't know to protect myself from. Something I would have run to with open arms, and suffered greatly for doing so.