What's Important to Me - Natalie Blaszak

Thinking of one thing that is important to me is pretty difficult. There are so many things that play such vital roles in my life, like family, friends, pets, etc. These are all pretty much classified as cliches but I guess they're considered that because they are the most important parts of people's lives.

When I hear the question, "what is important to you," the first answer I come up with is family. Whatever the mood--happy, sad, angry, frustrated--my family is always there for each other. I could argue with my mom or my dad or my brother, but at the end of the day we love and care for each other. Yes, it's super sappy, but it's true.

Another major part of my life are my close friends. To be honest, they're my support group. My friends are the people I can tell anything to and when I do, they are there for me, will support me, and will give me the honest response to everything. Sometimes it can get difficult to plan out days to hang out, but when we finally do, we always have so much fun. Your friends are pretty much your chosen family. Sometimes they even are your family. In my opinion, close friends are super important, whether you have ten or one, because you need someone that you can just tell anything to. It's good to be able to vent to someone especially if they understand you and your life. It's good to be able to let go of all your worries to someone who will support you once you do.

Next up on the list of things important to me are my pets. I have two dogs, Maksym (9) and Roxanna (4). They are both Siberian Huskies who love to play out in the snow and are incredibly loving. We have kind of a "tradition," so to speak, of naming our dogs after generally Russian names, since they are a Russian breed. My family has only every had Siberian Huskies as pet dogs, for reasons that I don't actually know, but I'm guessing it's because they are such a beautiful breed of dog. Maks has deep brown eyes with a gray, black, and white fur coat and Roxy has ice blue eyes that look just like the water in the Maldives with a copper-toned fur coat. These two dogs are so incredibly important to me. They always make me so happy and put me in such a good mood as long as they are around. Roxy is super quirky and energetic, so every time I get home from school or even just get up in the morning, she jumps up on me and wiggles her tail like crazy. She's also such a lapdog. She always wants to be around us and loves attention. Maks is similar to Roxy, but definitely not as crazy. When I get home, he jumps up on me just like Roxy, but when it comes to attention, he doesn't require as much as Roxy. He's the dog that will be okay if you don't pet him every minute but also more than okay if you do. Maks loves to go outside, which is pretty much expected of any dog, and whenever he gets ready to go out, he twirls around in a little circle by the door. My dogs make me extremely happy and bring me so much joy with the little things that they do and just their overall contentment that they have is beautiful.

This topic really makes me understand how much we should cherish the people around us. Yes, I know it's another cliche, but something my parents said when I was younger was "nobody lives forever."This sentence struck out at me ever since, because it makes you realize that you need to tell the people that you care about that you, well, care about them. There's only so much time in our lives and the more you spend it with those you love, the better you time will be.