Six Weeks

My fiance shared a story about a friend of the family who died. It was a short story: he was diagnosed with cancer six weeks ago, and now he is dead. Six weeks. It will be seven months before she becomes my wife. Time is fleeting, I consider as these two timeframes cross my mind..well, they collide in my mind. Then more timeframes: five years before my youngest son graduates from high school, 20 years since I left my beloved photography to pursue a more stable career, two months before I hear back on a proposal I sent out. Six weeks, six weeks, six weeks....

It reminds me of the woman scoutmaster in New Mexico. She explained to me years ago that she was diagnosed with cancer and figured "I will not die living the life I am," and she divorced her husband and began living as she truly wanted. She was a cancer survivor, married to a different man, working mightily with the Boy Scouts, and a hero/ine to many young men. "I will not die living the life I am"...

Would you want to die living the life you are living now? Not me. I may be taking a slow turn to the changes I want, but I figure there are quicker ways to make the bend around. So, changes that are already afoot will come faster now. They have to. My dad used to tell me, "You ain't gonna learn any younger" whenever I wanted to try something new or different. It could be said that "you're not gonna begin living any sooner" either.