Life Planning – The White Board

Picture a white board.  A place where you jot your ideas and plans with your colourful dry erase markers.  Bullet points of home decorating ideas, lists of bills to pay and groceries to buy.  As plans change, you erase them and jot down new lists and new ideas.

I kept an imaginary “white board” in my mind, filled in with plans for our future.  The future that the Yeti and I  talked about often,  our plans to design our road map for our lives.

Lists on my imaginary whiteboard included; when my youngest graduates and finds his footing, I’ll put my house on the market, and I’ll move to be with the Yeti, and finally close the long distance gap that we’ve endured for a decade.  We’ll set up a home of our own, spending each night sleeping next to each other.  We talked about marriage and our wedding, right down to the details of the music for our first dance.  Oh, what a celebration we would have AT LAST (Etta James).

The dreams, the goals, the plans, filling up the white board in our minds.  The anticipation and joy we would have for the rest of our lives….. and then… it happened.

The White Board is Erased

The white board was completely erased.  Wiped clean of all the dreams of our future together in one fell swoop.  I still think about that, over two years later.  How does one pick up the pieces of a broken heart, relationship and life?  On occasion, I just sit in silence for a long time and stare into my future and all I see is vast nothingness.  It’s empty.  That’s what happened to me when I lost the love of my life.  I still have yet to figure out what my life looks like now without him.

When I was with the Yeti, I used to feel on top of the world and I felt like I had all the answers.  Now I feel like “I got nuthin'”.  I feel like I have no advice to give but to just keep moving forward, no matter what your situation.

What I  find helps if I am really down, is to go outside.   No matter what time of day or night.  The change of environment just seems to give my mental weakness a kick in the proverbial pants and resets my mind.  Maybe it’s the change in air temperature, the birds singing or just rustling of leaves in the grass.  It gives me something else to focus on and realigns my thoughts and then I start to feel like I can breathe again and carry on.

If Tomorrow Never Comes

Planning and foresight is a dream, really.  Think about it, when we look ahead with our plans for our life, our business, our plans for next weekend, we are hoping we will achieve our goals.  I would get on the “planning wagon”, telling the Yeti “we should…” and list off an number of things I’d hoped for us.  He would look at me with a smile and say “sounds great babe, but remember, all we have is today.  We are not guaranteed tomorrow”.  It’s as if he knew something I didn’t.

So many people who have had near death experiences say they live their life to the fullest, because you don’t know which day will be your last.  If you have love to give or words to speak, do it today, because, as Garth Brooks sang, what if “Tomorrow Never Comes”.

Restoring the Purpose

This past weekend, I had a conversation with someone about purpose.  I told her that I am trying to find my purpose now that my kids our grown and starting lives of their own.  My purpose of loving the Yeti and supporting him as he pursued his new career goals has skidded off the rails.  It is a difficult mental road to navigate.

I had to remember that I was someone before I had my children and before I met the Yeti.  I am still whole on my own and I will continue to move forward until I find my purpose.  No, it’s not easy, but it is necessary.

At Last

You know when I talked about that song we had chosen for our first dance? I believe, when we are reunited in the afterlife, the Yeti and I will have our first dance and we will be united forever.  Like the song says  .. “and here we are in Heaven, for you are mine at last”.

I invite you to have a listen below:

AT LAST – ETTA JAMES

**Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group At Last · Etta James At Last! ℗ A Geffen Records Release; ℗ 1960 UMG Recordings, Inc. Released on: 1960-11-15 Producer: Phil Chess Producer: Leonard Chess Associated Performer, Recording Arranger, Conductor: Riley Hampton Associated Performer, Vocals: Etta James Composer Lyricist: Harry Warren Composer Lyricist: Mack Gordon

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