There are many four-letter words in the English language. The most important one however cannot be described simply with four-minute letters forming the word. The word life is not a word but a feeling. It’s the sound of freight-train breathing as you and a horse go over a jump course for the first time, when the horse breaths for you because your afraid if you breath that soaring feeling may fall away. It’s in the way the sun rises everyday, showering the light across the ground filling you with warmth not from the outside, but starting with the inside. It’s almost getting in a car accident and everything moves in slow motion, then last second the driver swerves and you are granted another day to live. It’s waking up on a cold stone, biology room floor and becoming a new person.

I realized life was not just a word that day, when I woke up on the cold floor, numb to the world. I was the new kid, in a school where everyone knew each other since seventh grade or earlier, entering in sophomore year. That day I stood in the biology room feeling strange. I thought about asking to go to the nurse, but I couldn’t seem to form the words. Then my eyes started opening and shutting faster and faster by themselves. Next thing I remember is not knowing anything. I opened my eyes I saw nothing, though I wasn’t fearful because I didn’t know enough to be fearful. Then suddenly a film was removed from my eyes, and I saw metal posts, chair legs. Suddenly the icy floor I was lying on came to my realization. “Up, I must get up”, I thought. When I moved my head my ears popped like when emerging from water, deaf for a moment. Suddenly I could hear everything, questioning voices, humming of computers, feet shuffling, my own heart beating. I could only think “out, I must leave”, so I stumbled toward the door, unsure why. Then the nurse ran by me in the hallway, coming back she made me sit in a wheelchair. When I sat down I was thinking, “great I'm the one person to pass out in biology”, when I heard the nurse and teacher talking. He said it looked like a seizure. Seizure? No way. Then suddenly my stomach heaved and acid bit my tongue as I looked for the trash can. My stomach heaved as my body tried to reject this possibility.

After all the tests and doctors visits I found I was going to live, most likely an average life. Life. That’s what I decided to do. Live this “life” as they call it, the four letter word that holds all the secrets to life’s mysteries, the word that makes anything and everything possible. I will enjoy every last moment of this life, doing as much as I can to live mine, and help others live theirs. My four-letter feeling is LIFE.