Granted Never Taken

Granted Never Taken

John Paul Derryberry

17-year-old John, on a plane, flew to London, England, with my mom laughing about how mad my dad would be angry that my mom finally splurged on an international trip. There are numerous reasons why the flight to London is a core memory for me, one of them being realizing my mom and I would be all right after years of fighting the grieving process because we were finally going to grieve together. The other cornerstone is how it cemented into my core the notion of taking good things for granted. The idea is that the solid foundation of people who care about you, who are dependable, who demonstrate love the proper way, and who give you the ability to feel loved are often the same folks we just expect to be there right when we need them, or always when we need them.

There is no way for a young person not to take great parents for granted. We lack the foresight to understand the long bend of life and how dependable, peaceful love and predictability are the cornerstones to healthy relationships. Yet, at 17, I fully felt the weight of taking my father for granted. I clung to every memory I could file away, etched every conversation I could remember into stone, and understood time is very limited with the best people in our lives. It's why, for the longest time, I'm always confused by folks who put the chaotic people, the unpredictable folks, and most importantly, the selfish folks at the center of their calendars.

It's why, for as long as I can remember, few friends- many memories have been a motto I follow. It's why people who make me laugh and bring me peace, and when I walk away from hanging with them, I feel like a better person, are my kind of folks. The arc of our limited time means making choices like this, who to invest in, who to place on the back burner, who to make decisions around, and who not to. It's not easy for anyone. The first thing I would offer as advice to anyone is to go easy on yourself. There is no human alive who has not wasted time on someone or taken the wrong people for granted. I have screwed it up a lot, even though I have a history of knowing the consequences of taking the wrong people for granted.

The second thing is that when you figure it out and start making choices on priorities for the people in your life, it gets better. It gets much better when we pick the right folks and realize we prioritize them and how they treat us. They double down on being dependable, peaceful, and predictable. These behaviors fill the soul up, even if we disagree with them on certain aspects of life. See, because it's not about keeping the peace in relationships. It's about not always balancing the scales to ensure it's even. It's about knowing our time is always limited and doing our best to fill it with people who actively prioritize the give-and-take it requires to achieve a healthy relationship.

I'm often asked how much you would love to have five more minutes with your dad. The apparent answer is that I would love that very much; to fill him in on the life I have built would bring me such peace. But even that theoretical conversation misses the point of not taking people for granted. The real trick is doing my absolute best not to have another person for that answer. I need to use my time wisely and thoroughly enough that the people I love do not feel I ever took them for granted. To pull that off would be the most outstanding achievement of my lifetime. It could be yours if we all realize it's easier to move on after things end when we prioritize the correct people. For our loved ones left behind, to know they were a priority, they mattered, and not once did we take them for granted is such a gift in life. Gifting our loved ones a relationship done correctly is rare. My dad understood that, and I think after all these years, I do too. We can't be perfect, but we can do our best to always show the important people in our lives they were never taken for granted.