I'm a Little Morbid, Just a Little, but I'm Also Realistic

Some people would find this morbid or maybe even negative. I find it damn realistic, especially at my age. 

A few years ago I started a list of people who I knew, who died before 50. Topping the list was my  sister, who died at 42. As I started getting older the list grew and I found myself adding co-workers and former classmates around my age to the list. These are classmates from Waltrip High School, the University of Houston and colleagues from the Houston Chronicle.

Facebook memories served up a memory recently about a trip I took with the kids to Marfa, Big Bend and Terlingua in June, 2021. I had a comment from a friend about how she loved staying in the Chisos Basin. She made this comment in June and she died that November. One morning she woke up, had a headache and passed out. She was only 52, one year older than me at the time.

I often see comments on old Facebook posts from friends who have passed and it always makes me smile to remember them fondly and then I feel a little melancholy too. I've started to think of these past messages as little whispers, reminders from them. "Hey live your best life! Life can be short."

I'm 53, eleven years older than my sister was when she passed away. The past eleven years have flown by and I think of all the things I wanted to do, but didn't, because I let life get in the way. 

I came across this blog about feeling like I was on the cusp of something amazing in April of 2021. It blows me away that it's been two years since I wrote that. 

I joined the Central Nebraska Writing Group the fall of 2020 and in April 2021, when I wrote that blog post, I started the first draft of my current novel. I was pretty much finished with the first draft by April of 2022. That's over a year ago! 

So the question is, "Am I done editing and revising it?" The answer is NO. Like I said in a current Facebook post about this, time marches on and when we put off doing things, we look up and the time has passed. So just do the thing. Time is going to pass anyway.

This is why it is so important that I take the time to write 30 minutes a day!  Life is short.