Purpose in Life

I almost titled this post, “Contemplating Dying” but I didn’t want to panic anyone! I’m doing fine. I seem to be continuing to recover from my cancer treatments and don’t have any solid reason to expect anything other than continued recovery. I just felt this morning like I wanted to write some more about how to best use my life – particularly now that I’ve realize that our time here is very limited. So yes, the idea of impending death. We all face it someday, and as a society we don’t talk very much about it.

This is a follow-up post to an earlier one this July, when I first I started to really think about the concept that I could actually die relatively soon, rather than in some vague distant future. I still believe that I could die relatively soon (because that’s what the data says), but I’m feeling more settled about it.

The data, by the way, in case you missed that post, says that I have somewhere between 20% – 40% chance of not living for more than 5 years. So let’s say – 30%, but who knows? Logically, if there was anything else in my life that had an approximately 1/3 chance of happening (like pregnancy or a change in job or whatever), I would do some planning for it. I wouldn’t count on it happening because 30% is less than the 70% chance that it doesn’t happen. But I certainly wouldn’t ignore a 30% possibility.

I started talking about the big “what if?”. This caused some consternation among my friends and family, because it’s a hard topic that nobody wants to face. But it’s a very relevant topic to me. My question to myself was, “If I were to die in the next few years, is there anything I would have wished I had done differently?”

There were a few answers to that question that came under the category of “settling one’s affairs.” For example, John agreed to give significant assets to our kids if we knew my death was eminent, rather than waiting until we both die and our estate is settled. I also reached out to various people and said some things that I felt needed to be said – sometimes for my own sake, sometimes for theirs.

Other things had to do with shifting from playing a “long game” to a shorter game. John and I had been diligently preparing for an eventual retirement. But since my diagnosis, we’ve made a series of choices (selling rental properties, walking away from my environmental science career, and purchasing a home in Tucson) that have significantly decreased our ability to rapidly save for retirement. Because of those recent choices, we will not be able to retire as well, or as soon. But we decided the next couple of years were important to us, and we didn’t want to spend them working so hard. We wanted to spend them being together.

In July I started talking about bucket list items. At first, I thought this would be an important way to prepare for the potential end of my life. But then I realized I don’t really have any outstanding bucket list items. I realized it doesn’t really matter to me if I ever see Europe or not. Of course I would like to see Europe before I die, but it’s not like if I go to see Europe, then I would somehow magically be ready to die.

I don’t want to die in my mid-fifties, and it’s not because I did or didn’t get a chance to see Europe. It’s because I want to be there for John and the kids a decade from now, two decades from now, three decades from now. And I can’t rush that. I can’t somehow condense all those times I could help and support my friends and family over the next three decades into a one-year or two-year timeframe. There really isn’t a big thing that I could complete now, and then feel content that I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do. Ta-da! Ready to die! (Not.)

All I really want to do right now is the same things that I want to continue to do for the next three decades. Spend more time with John and the kids. Reach out to my friends and family. Support them in small ways; try to make life a little easier for everyone, including myself.

It’s seems like I should end this post with some sort of awe inspiring, metaphorical photo, but I don’t seem to have one that’s current. Here’s the view out my window this morning.

It’s raining! I guess that explains my mood. In the desert, we welcome the rain, but that doesn’t mean I actually like it! Plus, my ever-practical, house-oriented mind is like, “Huh, the water’s not draining off the patio. It looks like we ought to install a French drain.” By the way, the pool water isn’t actually that blue; that’s the plastic cover we have on it until spring.

Oh look, I found a cactus close-up I took yesterday. Not sure if that’s exactly the metaphorical mood I’m going for. Beautiful but covered in spines? Not a huggable cactus!

I’ll leave you to contemplate cactus spines and I’ll write about something more cheerful next time, I promise!

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