Leftovers

The experts must be right, women must really outlive men - at least married women vs their spouses. I'm not going to speculate on why that may be - insert your own joke here - far be it from me to lob an easy one at you this morning!

We were looking for a sympathy card yesterday for a family friend who lost her husband. He, the last of the fathers and dad's from my wife's neighbourhood group of close family friends back home, passed away this week after a lengthy struggle with various illnesses including strokes and diabetes. I could discuss the drama surrounding their only child, a son, who when informed of his father's impending fate, passed on coming home right then as he didn't want to remember his father 'that' way - I could, but I won't beyond just that - it's not my place to say what's right or wrong for individuals when facing the final pages of the book of life. I feel for his mother though, that's a cruel and cold way to leave her in her time of need.

About that sympathy card, there were not many cards in the long racks of Sympathy cards for "On the loss of your husband" there were plenty the other way around, and for fathers, mothers, children, pets and likely imaginary friends - the greeting card industry is almost as bad as the insurance industry in profiting from tragedy and misfortune - but we found only three cards for those who have lost their husbands, and that got us thinking.

What if you really didn't love your husband or spouse by that point in your lives? What if you'd just become faithful to the idea of living with this person after all those years? Oh sure, maybe you were madly in love back in the day and got carried away and next thing you know there's the wedding the cake the white dress and then the raising of the family and one day you woke up and realized that, by god, this isn't what it was supposed to be like... but by then it seemed like too much trouble to shake things up and pursue your dream of singing opera in Europe, or travelling through the desert on camel-back, or writing novellas from your beachside apartment overlooking the California coast...

What if, in that situation, the more appropriate card would be "On the loss of the man who dragged you down and kept your spirit hidden all these years" or "Sorry for your loss, but here's to a new start!"

Maybe we should have been looking in the Congratulations section...

Change is never easy. Doesn't matter how old you are or what the situation is, we are creatures of habit and become very comfortable in our routines. Did I mention school started again this week for us? The boy is off to grade 8.

Grade 8?!? how did that happen? wasn't he just starting school a couple years ago? How does life do that to us, and why aren't we more aware of the passing of time like that? I think its like the leftovers on the second shelf in the back of the fridge. You had great intentions of getting back to them; to enjoying them again, but things happened, you got busy, stuff got in the way - literally, and you got used to them being there and then one day you forgot what that container was, and how long it had been there, until you bravely (or stupidly) opened it up and examined the contents, and then BAM! you shut that lid as quick as you can, and toss the whole contaminated thing in the trash before the authorities call the HAZMAT team in to secure the premises.

We do the same thing is most areas of our lives, cluttering our minds (and desks and junk drawers and closets etc) with useless trivial details, objects and facts, while letting the important things and people get pushed to the back, where they get misplaced, forgotten, comfortably ignored, until one day they resurface, and then we're forced to deal with the importance of these issues or events or people and finally find some closure. That's true peace of mind - closure on so many open loops in your life - anything that has your attention will continue to drag and bog you down until you give that, whatever it is, its due process and decide once and for all what it means to you and where it belongs in your life, if at all.

I cleaned my office this week, and forced myself to go through all the inboxes, stacking trays, folders and piles of "stuff" on, in, and under my desk and deal with all their contents in that very same manner - what is it?, what does it mean?, what do I do with it? I have David Allen and his Getting Things Done approach to life organization to thank (or blame) for this process and I am currently enjoying much more clarity and focus again having gotten alot of the "stuff' that was on my mind off it and put in its rightful place and able to be retrieved and reviewed as needed to ensure that I am on-top of all my commitments in every aspect of my personal, professional and private life. The overflowing recycling bin is a testament to my efforts.

I'd like to think I've gotten all the clutter out of my brain, but I know it will take discipline and patience to watch that I am not allowing "stuff" to collect in those dusty corners of my brain, and to trust that I've made the necessary decisions about what things mean and what I need to do about them to keep that peace of mind.

Maybe that's the cause of my migraines...

An old friend found me through Facebook this week, and I accepted her friend request, with a moment of hesitation - not because I'm not or don't want to be friends with her - we've kept and lost contact off and on over the years more to do with distance and life in general than conflict or personal disinterest - my hesitation had everything to do with having left alot of my past on that second shelf of life's fridge as the years passed, and not being certain I wanted to decide what those containers might hold or what they might mean to me or what, if anything, I should do with them. There's that GTD methodology at work again.

Facebook and her list of our old mutual friends might mean more requests from people left behind for whatever reason as life moved forward. Do I want to deal with that? Do I really care one way or the other? I think there's more to this story than I know or am letting on to myself, and I have a feeling I'll need to wade through some of life's leftovers on my shelf and take real stock of what's there and why, and what I want to do with it moving forward.

It's too easy to close that door and keep those containers left where they are right now, the way they have been, the way they slowly became that way, and not do anything with them. That's the routine we build for ourselves everyday living within our comfort zones and going about our business and watching time pass by without really noticing it. It's easy too, to open more new containers and clutter our mental and social surroundings with them and stay comfortably satiated in our busy-ness without digging a little deeper to really develop a true and lasting, deep connection to them, allowing them to become a meaningful part of our lives.

Like my desk and the boy starting grade 8, it's better to dig deep now and wade through that kind of clutter and find some peace of mind and acceptance with our leftovers than to wake up one day and realize you've spent the majority of life up to this point not being who you were meant to be or being with someone you really didn't like or even know because it was easier that way than facing your second shelf on the fridge of life.

Make it a great day, I'll catch you a bit later - I have an old friend to check in with.