You can't change the past...

 Hello,

I am doing well and am feeling so much better than I did for quite awhile.  Didn't really notice how bad I was feeling until I felt better.  I blamed it on menopause, COVID, long hours at work and so on.  As my husband says,"can't change the past" so I have been doing inventory on my life and trying to change things.

I always thought of myself as an authentic person.  I hoped to be very real and live my life that way.  This big "life scare" has made me even more comitted to love the people I love harder and not waste time on things that don't matter.  It's not easy to change life long habits though.  It takes time...and honestly I don't know that I have a ton of time.  I know I am cured and I know that I feel great, however, the what if's can take over my mind if I let them.  While "what if's" aren't bad in many cases, in mine....I always go to the negative.  I hate that about myself but being my authentic self...

Yesterday, I was watching my daughter and her friend, Jill, do a triathalon.  They swam a 1/2 mile, biked 12.5 miles and ran a 5 K.  I told them I was going to do that with them early in the spring and would start training for it, but never had the energy after work to do it.  Finally I decided I was too old and tired to ever do one again.  I wasn't too sad as I was thought I was being dramatic and thought that I would get my act together at some point and train.  Anyway, yesterday, I heard myself say, " If I am alive next year, I am going to do this tri with you guys".  Why the hell did I say that?  Even if things don't go my way....I suspect will be here at this time next year.

It makes me so aware of what my patients have gone through in my career.  I understand why my mother never went to the oncologist to hear her diagnosis.  She was scared and was hoping that she was healthy.  Now I know you face things head on and as Jim says, "do the next thing."  

I have been listening to church hymns during the day.  It has been so easy to talk about my faith when I am feeling good and have the world by the tail.  I can do it now, but it is not so easy.  Why?  Because I feel like I really need to believe it.  I have questioned so much through my life about God.  I watch my children who were raised in the church question and they are right.  How do you believe something you don't see without asking a few questions.  I have been doing that for years, asking questions in my head and wondering why things happen.  I really struggle with the "God's plan" stuff especially with patient's I care for.  If a family says that, I just stay quiet and listen as I struggle with those kind of things.  I wish I knew all the answers, but we don't....I don't, you don't and to act like we do makes us not authentic.

Having said that, I am on a journey.  A journey to love harder, not waste precious time with things that don't matter,  honoring time and being aware of it.  I am praying....I love to talk so I talk to God a lot, and hoping for the gift of time. 

 Honestly, I feel great, and I have been taking inventory of my life on a weekly basis.  I have a great husband....amazing kids or should I say, young adults and so many awesome friends.  I am overly lucky in so many ways...

I have some free advice.  Don't wait until you get a wake up call.  Take inventory now of what really matters to you and focus on that.

Do you wish you could spend more time with your spouse?  What is holding you back?  Figure it out and make it happen.  How about your kids?  Do you need to spend time with them?  Then do it.  

All I know is "you can't change the past" as Jim Ritter says, and I have learned that tomorrow is not guaranteed....

Get after it!!

We'll tawk soon,

I love you all,

Terry