It’s exhausting, and not at all what you had in mind.

But here’s the thing: These moments, these “experiences,” they may feel like they will break your spirit at the time, but they won’t. You WILL look back on them one day and manage not to cry or cringe, and instead you’ll see it for the character-building, memory-making time that it was.

When you are on your deathbed, you won’t recall with any great detail the eight-plus hours you spent every day in an office, or the hour and a half you spent in the car on your daily commute. I understand the bills have to be paid, I’m not saying quit your job and run away to join the circus, or sell up and spend a year sailing around the world. What works for some is a nightmare for others. What I’m saying is, When you’re dying, you won’t look back and remember how horrible that picnic was because of the ants, and how hard the ground was, and because you stuck your hand in bird shit and took a bite of your sandwich before you noticed. Instead you’ll remember how blue the sky was that day, how warm the sun felt, and how long and hard you laughed with your friends (or family). How good it felt to be outside, reconnecting with nature, doing nothing much in particular.

So take that walk, bake that cake with plums foraged from the neighbor’s tree. Sleep under the stars, feed the birds, read the paper from cover to cover; the housework can wait.

Slow down.

Keep the balance.

Keep it simple.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

January brings with it new resolve. I have been caught up in a downward spiral lately, focusing on the unfairness of my illness, and the impending hard days to come. I know why, of course. James. He is everything I ever wanted. Loyal, passionate, funny. When we are not sleeping or making love we are talking, about anything and everything. He tells me about the places he has been and the things he has seen and I close my eyes and pretend I was there with him, at his side all along. It’s a poor substitute for actually having done it, but it will have to do.

After the hospital visit I decide I have been concentrating too much on dying, and I need to remember to focus more on actually living instead. It’s hard, though, when most of the time I am so tired all I can do is curl up on the couch and watch life go on around me.

Kate and my mother have gone into wedding-planning overdrive. There are To Do lists stuck to surfaces all around the house, and Kate has taken to walking around with a pen tucked behind her ear so that she always has one on hand to scribble down notes in the little teal-colored notebook that she keeps tucked under her arm. Especially useful for the many phone calls she fields.