Unrelated to the post, but Bumblebee was parked in front of my house yesterday.
I got back from my uncle’s funeral service a few hours ago. It was belated for various reasons — he died over a year ago — but the service was well-attended, in a beautiful location, and I feel as if we did right by him.
Both my father-in-law and my uncle passed away around the same time last year. For a few months my stress levels redlined and I had difficulty sleeping, but after I’d had a chance to grieve and the bulk of the end-of-life logistics were handled for both family members, I settled into a more reflective state. It’s been good to consider my own mortality, and the mortality of my friends and family. It’s easier to prioritize what’s important when I consider the relative imminence and unavoidability of death. I frequently let my family and friends know that I love them, I work on my big ideas, and I do the things I would regret not doing were my life to be cut short.
But I hope that my life continues for a very long time, because I’m enjoying it immensely. In terms of external life metrics such as finances and career, I’m doing fine, but what’s really making me happy are the following:
I’ve been a storyteller all my life. A large part of what made me want to become a writer came from attending military school at New York Military Academy. There, my friends and I played a lot of role-playing games and even made up our own. The school had its own small literary magazine and I submitted some stories. People adored them and that really helped me. I continued writing short stories for my high school magazine “Slant of Light” and I even placed in a couple of writing competitions too. Then I joined the Air Force and, regrettably, I put my pen away for a while. Glad to have picked it back up, though.
