My uncle Bob came in from Texas over the week­end. My aunt died about a year and a half ago she had fought lung can­cer for over five years before final­ly suc­cumb­ing. My uncle Jack also came in on Sun­day. After I got off work I head­ed to my grand­moth­er’s house to see them. My moth­er and I sat there with my grand­moth­er, her broth­er and her broth­er-in-law the con­ver­sa­tion turned to travel.

My grand­moth­er men­tioned that she and her bunko group had planned to take a cruise, but they had wait­ed too long and now they could’t leave their hus­bands long enough. My uncle Jack echoed that. There were things that he planned to do and wait­ed too long. Bob said the same thing. He and Rober­ta had planned to trav­el and then she got sick. It was a sad con­ver­sa­tion. My mom went home deter­mined to start tak­ing her vaca­tions. To not wor­ry that about hav­ing to start pay­ing off her cred­it cards again. And I was remind­ed of all the sto­ries heard from retired cruis­ers who said “I wished I done it soon­er.” The sto­ries of peo­ple who died before they could accom­plish their dreams. I was on Pin­trest the oth­er day and say this

 

I found this on pin­ter­est and would love to know who the orig­i­nal cre­ator is.

And it is true. I would rather live a life trav­el­ing, cruis­ing, work­ing crap jobs that keep me afloat and have the expe­ri­ences and mem­o­ries that make life worth liv­ing. Rather than the com­fort­able, caged life of careers, mort­gages, and expec­ta­tions. Life should be lived and while the argu­ment can be made that not all of us can live like that I dis­agree. Amer­i­can’s are obsessed with stuff, which leads to obses­sion with mon­ey to get the stuff and high pay­ing jobs to get the mon­ey to get the stuff. It is a cycle that I believe should be bro­ken. We buy expen­sive toys as a con­so­la­tion to spend­ing most of our lives work­ing. The toys are fun in their own right, but you can have fun oth­er ways if you aren’t spend­ing all your time working.

I know peo­ple who tru­ly love their work, and if you can do that then I’m all for it!  But if your work isn’t your pas­sion then try and live a life you can enjoy. Embrace expe­ri­ence.  I remem­ber going to the beach after school, swim­ming with the man­a­tees, camp­ing on the beach at Edis­to State Park. I remem­ber swim­ming the reefs of the Keys, the amaz­ing, col­or­ful trop­i­cal fish, the sharks, the jel­ly­fish. I remem­ber the sun­sets at Mal­lo­ry square, lunar eclipses watched from the beach and fog­gy morn­ings where mist weaves through the man­groves. I remem­ber work­ing with world cham­pi­on hors­es and train­ers. I have heard our wolves howl, curled up with them in the dog hous­es, and watched them play in the snow. I am so grate­ful that my life has been full of these kinds of moments and I am not of the mind to let them end. Make yours a life worth remem­ber­ing. I have no idea where this quote orig­i­nat­ed, but I have it on a bag I had made.

At some point your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.