30 April 2021 – I wish I had better news, but the truth is our time is finite. That is guaranteed—nothing we can do about it except figuring out how to spend every minute of it. When the girls were young, I had every hour of our weekends and evenings planned out. We hosted parties and dinners at our house, and we had friends. Life was busy, but we were all so happy. There were hard days but overall it was magical. We were always doing something – we practically lived at the zoo. During the Oklahoma state fair, we were at the fair every day. We saw every cow, pig, flower and blue-ribbon pie, and we ate everything.

As the girls grew up and became busy with sports and friends, I stopped planning every detail. Pretty soon, I stopped planning much of anything. For a while, we stayed busy with race cars – they occupied every moment of Dave’s life. He spent more time with his dad and made some great friends at the track. This was wonderful for Dave, but it made life really lonely for me. I became homebound, and I was happy enough that way. The drawback was that pretty soon; I didn’t really have any friends. I had some hard days. I eventually just existed at work and home, and I did nothing extra. The last year or so before Dave died, we started doing things with some of my work friends and their wives. I really enjoyed those times.

The issues started after Dave died when I realized how isolated I was. This is not the story I want to tell right now, but this backstory is important to what I do want to say. On Saturday, July 1, 2017, two weeks after Dave died and shortly after my parents left to go back to Colorado, I realized that I had no future and was completely alone. I had some hard days. I had two choices, stay isolated or make plans. William James wrote, “To change one’s life: start immediately, do it flamboyantly, no exceptions.” I decided to start living, no exceptions. I knew it would be difficult, and it would hurt, but it was the only real choice.

Some days are easier than others. Today was not an easy one. The past couple of weeks have been full of some really hard days. That’s part of my life, and I am learning to embrace it. I wouldn’t say I like it, but I get it. But, I am also exhausted. So today, I decided to take a few moments to close my eyes and bring to mind an image of my life the way I wish it to be. I still don’t have a grand vision of what I want my life to look like, but I am trying hard.

A good vision will help me illuminate my path and then make a plan and start a series of steps, a series of first steps, one after another. I can’t do nothing while I figure it out. It makes life sad with some really hard days. I guess I don’t have to wait until I figure it out. I can keep moving. There is no reason to wait and every reason to begin. Paulo Coehlo said, “Never allow waiting to become a habit. Live your dreams and take risks. Life is happening now.” I may not have a big exciting monumental vision of what I want, but I do know that I don’t want to be unhappy. I can do more of what makes me happy.

My favorite writer, transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, wrote, “Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” I will do it all, I will start today, and once I realize where I am going, it will be grand. Until then, I will have hard days and great days; they are all mine.