"If today was your last day and tomorrow was too late
Could you say good bye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last
Leave old pictures in the past?"
--If today was your last day—Nickelback
I am not good at saying good bye. I tend to cling. I am still mulling over stuff that happened years ago. I have a hard time letting go even though intellectually I know it is not healthy for me or the people I am busy thinking about. I wish I was better at putting things behind me. I would be happy if I could even just put things aside.
I am getting better though. I recently have begun compartmentalizing issues. I don’t dispose of them; I just put them neatly in a box inside my head for viewing later. I understand feuds. I understand long running disagreements. The Protestants and the Catholics have nothing on me. I can literally picture myself arguing with Saint Peter for five more minutes, just to check my email one more time to see if my sister finally came to her senses and apologized, agreeing I have been right her entire life.
But here is what I would do if I was better at letting go, I would laugh more. If I got notification ahead of time, my term on this plane was up; I would quit my job immediately. I don’t even know if I would call in. I would call some of my co-workers because they have become my work family but probably not the corporate office. I would start smoking again because I loved smoking. It was something I was good at. I didn’t quit because I wanted to, I quit because I had to. I might even embrace several other vices given the opportunity, like chocolate for breakfast or margaritas for lunch--note I didn’t say "with" lunch. I said "for" lunch. I would buy that Mustang I have wanted for 30 years, knowing it was going to be mine for only a little while. I would take my son to Ireland, just he and me. I would write letters to all the people in my life that have been so incredibly important to me and I would have someone designated to deliver them on their birthdays during the year following my demise. I would finish my genealogy project. I would arrange to have someone come in and help the Hub so he wouldn’t be so lonely (or without clean clothes) until he made the transition. I don’t want him to have to think about hard things right away. I would finish my funeral CD and make sure my IPOD was current. When Heath Ledger died his friends supposedly left his IPOD as is and passed it from one to another to "capture" a moment of his essence. I thought that was a very cool idea.
So with all this said, the point that should be driven home to myself and to you is why wait to do some of this stuff. The time is now, "So live like you're never living twice/don’t take the free ride in your own life..."