Taking That Time to Appreciate...

This time of year is hectic.  It is when I am scrambling trying to get things pulled together for the beginning of the school year.  It is also the time of year when I am trying to get things pulled together for myself.  My life revolves around a school calendar.  

It is always more hectic becuz hubby is always out of town for end of the fiscal year training and meetings.

This year is also more intense since my son is going through class sign up for fall and has his job...and my daughter may be beginning a babysitting job at the end of the week...every weekend.  I am lining up my calendar and supplies to FINALLY paint the inside of this house...three years after moving in. Yes, I've put it off cuz I am not great at painting.  But someone has to do it and it looks like I am the only one left in Dodge.

This year as Troy goes off to the end of the year fiscal meetings it will be with a heavier heart for him.  He just found out that one of his main cohorts in crime dropped dead at a job on Friday.  I could tell over the phone that he was shaken and trying to control himself.  It isn't often that I have been witness to my husband getting emotional over anything.  In our 22 years of marriage I could count it up on one hand.  I think the shakiest part for him is that they do not know yet why his friend Gary died.  Troy was trying to sort it out.  He said, "he wasn't even 10 years older than me.  He smoked, he could DRINK, and he was  a little overweight but not even as overweight as I am."  I was wondering if he was giving any thought to his flipness on our 20th anniversary when he had taken me to a great hotel, out to dinner, then returned to the room for wine and handed me a box with a brand new wedding ring inside and with the clink of the classes he said,"Thank you honey for all the years.  I love you.  I only want 10 more."  It startled me because I at first thought he was putting a time limit on how much longer we were going to be married.  When I said, "10 MORE??"  he said, "be realistic...I'm overweight, I don't exercise, I smoke, and I have a high stress job!  If I last 10 more years it's a miracle." 

I wonder if that was running through his mind these last few days.  He also has cholesterol problems which he has refused to deal with.  I think about the fact that even though I have always emerged with a clean bill of health (and, as the doctor puts it, "enough GOOD cholesterol to share with the whole family") I could still just drop over as well as anyone.  I'm going to be 51 in about 6 weeks.

Live each day as if it was your last...enjoy it as if it will last forever. 

Believe me...I have been paying a lot more attention to the details and the ppl in my life for a while now.  Every since 2 years ago when a male friend of mine from HS suddenly dropped dead from a massive heart attack a few weeks before our 30 year class reunion.  He lived life hard, ate everything wrong, smoked, and drank like it was all going to dry up the next day.  He cheated on his wife (his ex-wife at the time of his death...surprise) but he was the first one to give the shirt off his back to help a friend.  He was respectful to me...except when he felt the need to share a raunchy joke and even then he apologized to me afterwards.  He was one of a kind. 

It's tough getting older and finding you are losing the ppl you know.