Tomorrow

 In high school my friend Kelly said something that stuck with me, which was "Tomorrow isn't promised to anyone". I wound up writing it as my yearbook caption - Kelly says tomorrow isn't promised to anyone. It was equal parts morbid, equal parts contradictory to what the teachers had been telling us all year about our future. My teenage angst was strong in those days. 

Kelly died within 5 years of leaving highschool, which always felt like such a strange coincidence given his wisdom. He was quite a religious guy, and I don't know how he died, but the overwhelming memory of him for me was his enthusiasm and good attitude. No angst as far as I could tell. 

I've carried this feeling with me my whole life. It was obviously reinforced when Ryan died, the idea that the bottom could fall out  of your life at any moment, no ryhme or reason to it. And the perceived promise that I'll die an old lady in my bed also went with it. Because suddenly at any moment in time I could drop off this earth and anyone I love could drop off too. This has profoundly changed the way I approach life. No one can tell you how to feel this way, but my experience has led me to feel this way and to live my life this way.

I don't live for any perceived promise of a tomorrow. I most definitely don't save anything for  retirement, it feels like tempting fate. Maybe that's irresponsible of me, but here I am. Not to mention, a lot of people die within 5 years of their retirement. What a crazy thing to wait for. 

So my hesitation to participate in modern day society in ways like working 40 hours a week and putting my kids in school Monday-Friday, that hesitation is due to the realization that I only have one opportunity to live on this planet and it could be taken at any time. So I participate in that part of society as minimally as possible. I recognize that my children, my family, are the most important part of my life and spending time with them especially when they're this small is the most important.

When I speak to older people, like a couple walking hand in hand in the woods together, they tell me how special and how fleeting time with their children was and they miss that part of their life very much.

Our plan for next year is born out of this idea. This idea that we can make our own rules, and our options for school and work and life are greater and bigger than I ever thought they were. 

Some of the repercussions of loss at an early age has turned into an anxiety about being alive, a worry, a constant fear of pain and hurt and danger that I have no control over. It's unjustified but I still can't control it. But I do have control over the choices we make and the life we design for ourselves. 

It took me awhile to get to this point, but it feels exciting.