Waiting for the After

I’ve been doing this a lot in the last year, maybe even longer. I’ve been waiting for the after. After I graduate… After I get a job… After I move… After the memorial… After I get diagnosed…After…

My life has become a list of events that I’m waiting to be done. Once those events have happened, I can finally live my life or make changes in my life.

One of my “afters” was threatened this week and it derailed me this week a bit. The “after” was supposed to come in a week and now it probably won’t happen for another two months. Doubt has also crept into my mind that it might not happen then either because it is dependent on something that is very unreliable.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who spends time waiting for the after. Why do we do it? It’s not like it helps us achieve anything. Sometimes waiting is good, but other times we use it as an excuse not to do anything until after that event or that thing happens. Sometimes that thing never happens and often when that thing does happen, we don’t do the things we said or thought we would.

Yet, we still wait for that after moment. I know I do.

I try to live in the moment but I often find myself waiting for the after.

From the Start – Book Review

Kate Walker used to believe in true love and happily ever after. While her own love life may have left her brokenhearted, it hasn’t kept her from churning out made-for-TV romance movie screenplays…until a major career slump and a longing to do something meaningful send her running back to her hometown of Maple Valley.

Permanently sidelined by an injury, former NFL quarterback Colton Greene is temporarily hiding out in a friend’s hometown to avoid the media and the reminders of all he’s lost. Maple Valley seems like the perfect place to learn how to adjust to normal life. The only trouble is he’s never really done normal before.

While Kate plays things safe and Colton is all about big risks and grand gestures, they both get what it’s like to desperately need direction in life. An unexpected project gives them both a chance to jumpstart their new lives, but old wounds and new dreams are hard to ignore. Starting over wasn’t part of the plan, but it just might be the best thing that’s ever happened to them. – from Melissa Tagg’s website

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I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

This delightful inspirational contemporary romance contains likable characters, humor, and heartfelt moments. Kate Walker is tired of writing romance movies and wants to write something more meaningful. Colton Greene is forced to retire from the NFL because of injury and wants to continue his career by staying in the spotlight. Kate and Colton are at a crossroads in their careers and they come together when a tornado ravages Kate’s hometown of Maple Valley and they help to restore the town. Throughout the novel, Kate and Colton struggle with knowing when to let go of a dream and how those dreams change or may be fulfilled in a different way than they thought.

You Have Weddings, We Have Funerals

My brother with our aunt at his high school grad. Her hair had just started growing back after chemo treatments. Both were gone 1 1/2 years after this picture was taken.

This has become somewhat of a saying in our family. Over 80% of my cousins over the age of 18 are married, with one recently engaged. That percentage lowers to around 70% if you include my brothers and I in that number.

I have attended 7 viewing services (a service the evening before a funeral), and 6 funerals for 8 different people and I’m only 23 years old. There are some other funerals I may have gone to if it worked with my schedule and on the location. In contrast, I’ve attended only 12 weddings.

This past week has made me aware of the divide between my life and the lives of those I graduated high school with about five years ago. Two people I know got engaged this past week and a couple people I know had children. On the opposite side, I found out that the mother of one of my best friends has been diagnosed with colon cancer, possibly stage 4. Right now they are saying it’s stage 3 but there are some spots on her liver that they’re not sure about. I’ve met my friend’s mom several times.

While people my age are getting married and having kids, I’m wondering when the next funeral I’ll be attending will happen and worrying about getting tests done to finally get diagnosed with a condition that will make me struggle with infertility if I ever decide to get married and try to have a family.

My life is so different from those of the people I graduated high school with, I don’t feel connected with them at all and I don’t know if I would go a class reunion if we ever had one.

While a lot of people my age go to weddings, I go to funerals.

We All Have Struggles

This past week has been a hard week emotionally and mentally. Scabs have been ripped off, wounds I didn’t know existed have opened up, doubts and insecurities have wiggled their way in, frustrations over  some health things have continued to grow. And of course because of all that, it’s that much easier to be frustrated by other things. I won’t go into details on them but it hasn’t been an easy week for me.

Sometimes it’s hard to see all the good in other people’s lives because we often focus a lot on the negative things in our lives. We see the bad in our lives and the good in others’ lives. We feel like we’re alone in our struggles because we don’t want to share them with others.

I’ve been like this for so much of my life. I don’t like sharing the struggles in my life with other people and I know there are lots of people out there who are the same way. We all have struggles in our lives, they just vary in their visibility.