I am a saver. A part-time hoarder, if you will. I have a hard time letting go of things that once meant a lot to me. Which means we have a lot of stuff. Baby stuff, kid stuff, things from my own past that remind me of different times. I'm always saving things for a rainy day. Gift cards, candles, bottles of wine, you get the idea. I don't want to use/open them just now, just in case. I want to save them for a special occasion or to cheer me up on a day that I could be feeling down.
But now, more than ever, I am reminded that life is short. There have been rainy days but I didn't burn the candle. There have been days I felt down, but I didn't stop at Starbucks to use the giftcard. And I wonder, whatever am I waiting for?
The future is there in front of me, but life is so uncertain. I watch with sadness as a co-worker struggles with her chemo treatments. My heart breaks as a fellow twin mom prepares to bury her 10 year old son. I see my own face in the mirror, swollen from months of steroid use, and lament the fact I didn't do our family pictures sooner.
People say they are praying for me - I wish they'd pray that I was miraculously healed. Because seriously, I don't want to do this anymore. This air of calm resolve you see on the outside is just a mask, hiding the chaos that circles in my soul. My to-do list rambles on with things I really should get to before I have life-changing surgery. But sheer exhaustion from kidney failure prohibits more items being checked done. What should I put off and what should I move to the top?
That candle I received years ago looms in my mind - why did I never burn it? The gift card sits in my wallet - why didn't I stop off and get a latte? Running, always running, from one thing to the next, with never a moment to slow down. Life speeds past as life is ought to do. And I find myself in a flurry of motion, hard-pressed for time because it's running out.
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