Future Talk (it ain't a pretty one, folks)

(Disclaimer: This is my personal vent. It is MY blog and therefore I am taking full responsibility for my rantings. But please, if you are going to read even the first sentence, stick it out until the end of the entry. Thank you, and please be sure to look both ways before crossing the street.)



I am beginning to think that the future is an obnoxious thing.  We don't appreciate the here and now because we spend so much time worrying about it. We make plans for the future without knowing what it will be. We base our here and now on the possibility of what will be when noone can say what that is.  We live our lives entirely dependent on something that doesn't even exist yet and no one has any control over.

Does any of this make sense? Probably not, I am only 2 sips into my first glass of wine tonight and I have Scooby Doo blaring in my ear.  What I am trying to get at is my frustration in the concept of a medical diagnosis of a "life expectancy".  I get angry when I hear that someone with a life threatening illness suddenly gets tagged with a finite amount of time, as if,  up until the discovery of the tumor, cancer, heart condition, that person's life expectancy was infinite. What? Really? Dang, had I known that.....

Folks, we ALL have a life expectancy and it is limited to the breath we are breathing right this instant. No further. I think we take it for granted that we are going to wake up tomorrow, let alone be around next year for that Mexican vacation we are planning (still have to get those tickets scheduled, darn it). I got a job once, when the employer was vacillating about hiring me due to the fact that I might only be around (due to my transient lifestyle) for one year.  I told him, yes, that was true. But he could hire the next best person who could promise to be around until the world ended, and they could walk out the door after the first day on the job and get hit by a truck. One just never knows....

 Now, I hear a couple of you getting defensive. WHAT A HORRIBLE, PESSIMISTIC, WAY TO LIVE YOUR LIFE!  Yup, it would be if that was the end of my reasoning.  For the record, I have been known to store water and canned goods in case I lived through that hurricane or wind storm. I even bought a case of batteries from Costco in preparation for Y2K.  Which is to say, I have hope that I will live to wake up tomorrow AND take that Mexican vacation, for what is life without hope? I even always try and look both ways before crossing the street. And I think that is a perfectly happy way to live life. Live with the hope, heck why not even the expectancy, that you will be there for your 50th class reunion, but realize and keep in the back of your mind that, well, despite your best intentions, that truck might just come out of nowhere. All of this to say that the threat of impending death should not be the life changer that it always seems to be. It should be the constant that encourages us to live every day to the best of our ability, and that includes living it with hope.

For the record, the doctor bases that expectancy of 5 more years of life with your "condition" based on the fact that you will be living in a box, on a shelf, doing nothing but existing, taking your meds and eating your vegetables. Why do we need an amount of time attached to our diagnosis? Why can't they say "You have cancer. You are expected to live. . . until you die."  The rest of your life is just as up in the air as it was when you didn't have cancer, just now you have the cancer meds to juggle as well as your shopping list and finding that deal on that flight to Mexico.. Life is nothing without a good challenge to make it interesting. Sometimes interesting sucks. I will grant you that one, but it is never boring and it usually uncovers a whole bunch of blessings if you keep your eyes open.

Okay, here is where the disclaimer comes in. You know what makes me even crankier? The fact that a good majority of us NEED the finality of a "life expectancy" in order to truly appreciate what we have! Yes, I am including myself. I have been on the surviving side of several unexpected deaths and life threatening illnesses in the past four months, and each time has been an absolute, lung-deflating, heart-destroying, iron-fisted blow to my sense of well-being.  I have become too entrenched in the minutia of directing my family's every last move and thought that I have done very little to pay attention to my own. Is this how I want to live my life? So wrapped up in the direction and control of everyone else's that I have nothing to show of my own? I am so torqued over the fact that my husband doesn't call me when he leaves the office to come home, that I don't stop to appreciate the fact that he is COMING HOME!! When we learned last month that the husband of a family friend had died suddenly and unexpectedly, in his sleep no less, it hit me that THAT could have been MY husband! In fact, some day, it might be! And what will I have to remember of our last days together? That I spent precious time complaining that he left his underpants on the floor next to the hamper again? That I wasted breath whining to him about the fact that I'm too fat to deserve to have him to tell me I'm sexy? That I went to bed cranky at him for playing solitaire instead of reading a good book (that I assured him he would love!)? Yikes! Really?

Now while I can't say that I never grump or whine anymore since the passing of our friend, I can at least say that I am always sure to tell him that I love him whenever he leaves or whenever he crosses my mind (thank you text messaging) and definately before we go to sleep!  See? Blessings out of misery.

The same has happened with this latest familial diagnosis of brain cancer. Hey, guess what? She isn't going to live forever.

                                              Damn.

But you know what? We are still going to make sure that she is careful about looking both ways before she crosses the street, and we are going to be especially careful with our Americanos while driving, and we are going to make a bigger effort to appreciate the blessings that God grants us each and every day, until one or the other of us dies.

       

Now, who's up for Mexico?