One Life. Go Live It.

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I'm sitting here watching UP with my son, and it came to the part where the old guy was looking through his old photo album of pictures of  him and his late wife. At the end of the album she had written, "We've enjoyed our adventure. Now go make another one." (I'm totally paraphrasing here. It's the only part of the movie I've seen).

It got me to thinking about life and how short it really is. If you sit back and let it go by without doing much to enjoy (or improve) it, it's your loss. You're not going to get another life. This is it.

I can't count the amount of time the words, "Some day I want to..." come out of my mouth. It's usually followed by something like, learn to knit, cook, be more patient, get up early etc. If I don't do one (or any) of these things now, they may never get done.

I don't know where I'm getting the determination to plow through the first draft of my new novel, but I'm not going to question it. I've never finished anything other than a short film before (though I have about half a million story ideas I've started and haven't finished). The fact that I'm moving ahead so quickly is what's keeping me confident that I'll finish it.

My biggest fear (besides losing the ones I love) is being on my deathbed and being regretful. That terrifies me. I don't think there's anything sadder than thinking, "I wish I'd done this, or spent more time with so and so."

My mom died when she was only fifty. She said there were a lot of things she didn't get to do. That broke my heart. We all know life can end much, much sooner than we plan on. You can die at 102 while going for your daily walk, or you can get hit by a driver who's not paying attention, while you sing songs with your baby in the backseat. We just don't know.

So I'm going to do it. I'm going to learn to knit. I'm going to try my hardest to learn to cook (if you've eaten my cooking before you'll know why I say try my hardest) . I'm going to work on getting up earlier so I can write then, and spend more quality time with my son during the day (without my head in the clouds, writing in my head). I'm going to make a list of things I want to accomplish and start working my way through it.

What are you going to do?

Comments

Pat Tillett said…
There you go, making me think again! You know what my childhood was like. Add to that my time in Viet Nam and I feel like my whole life is all gravy! Everyday is indeed a good day...
Good post Lisa!
October 13, 2010 at 3:19 PM
Michelle Gregory said…
encouraging post. thanks.
October 13, 2010 at 7:52 PM
Melanie Hooyenga said…
It's silly, but I'm going to Seattle. I've always wanted to go but never had the opportunity, so when a writing friend invited me to tag along when she goes at the end of the month, I jumped at the chance!

I really want to learn to knit too.
October 13, 2010 at 7:54 PM
Stephanie said…
I try to do what I can...obviously, I don't have the money right now to travel all over the world and eat at fancy restaurants and such!! But with the money we do have, we spend it on what makes us happy. Dying with a boatload of money doesn't appeal to me. I want to live my life. We constantly try to make the most of our time. And we let loose and have fun...life is too short to be stuffy!
October 14, 2010 at 12:27 PM
MJ Ray Photos said…
This is something I've been thinking about for a few months now. A while back the Doctor told me I could never ride horses again due to a neck injury, along with a long list of other DO NOT DO type of things. I figure I'm not getting any younger, so why waste it doing the so called "safe" things and not doing what I enjoy doing. I plan to ride horses again hopefully sooner than later.

I'm also doing more traveling and doing more of what I want to do and not worrying about the fear of "you may die or get seriously injured doing this" that slowly creeps into my head most of the time.

I love this post. Oh btw, this is my new blog. It's my work one, but it'll probably be the only one I can 'sort of' keep up with these days since I'm spending more time away from the computer and actually getting out there and doing stuff. I'm off to Vero Beach, Florida tomorrow.
October 21, 2010 at 2:39 PM
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