I was thinking about all the old sayings, old adages about the time being now, don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today, there’s no time like the present, today is the first day of the rest of your life….etc etc today. Don’t really remember what prompted it. I think I was thinking about the bushes that I need to trim at home that I have put off now for about 3 weeks. It’s a simple task really because I went out last summer and bought one of those electric hedge trimmers. The first time I used it the cord got in the way and I sliced through it instead of the branch. That effectively put the task off until I could buy another cord. Once I did that a few days later, the cord wasn’t long enough to reach the nearest outlet and the bush I wanted to trim. My option was to either buy another cord to extend the cord, take the new one back and get a longer one, or take the screen off the bedroom window so I could feed the cord into my bedroom and the outlet on the wall. I mulled this decision over for a couple of days and then decided I would take the screen off. Once the screen was off, I remember that my trash can was totally full and trash pick up was 2 days away….and its much easier to throw the trimmings into the trash can than to have to bag them…..so I propped the screen against the house and waited for an empty trash can. Then it rained. By the time I actually got around to trimming the bush about 3 weeks later it was totally out of control which meant I needed a ladder to reach the top of the branches. Which required another trip to Lowes and a purchase that I really didn’t want to make. Finally, when I had all the tools I needed and could find no reason to put it off any longer, I trimmed the bush. It took me about an hour total to do this. I had procrastinated for weeks for this small task that took a mere 60 minutes of my time. And now I seem to be repeating this pattern.
I am not a procrastinator by nature. If I decide to do something, usually on the spur of a moment because I hate to plan, I usually want to do it right then…I hate waiting. I hate having something undone. But I hate any kind of yard work more. If I could get away with having a paved yard and flowerbeds of rocks I would. I live next door to a man who spends hours in his yard, nurturing all sorts of plants and flowers and trees, hours on his knees weeding flowerbeds, watering stuff and I think I can’t come up with anything I would find more of a pain in the butt. I have tried to find a green thumb. I don’t have one. I kill every plant that comes within contact of me. I have killed Ivy’s, cactus, and plants that I’ve been told you can’t kill. I love the beauty of nature…as long as God or someone else is creating the beauty.
Ok, so I’m reading this article today about re-inventing yourself while I “re-invent” myself on the treadmill at the gym and it really made a lot of sense. One phrase the article used really stuck in my mind…Life is not a dress rehearsal. You get one life. There are not do-overs. The mistakes you make you make and move on from. You can always find a reason to put off doing something that you want or need to do. But do you really want to do that? At some point, do you really want to look back and say well if only I would have………instead of I’m glad I did that because…or well if I hadn’t tried I would have always wondered.
The article about me has prompted some total strangers to come up to me at various places and say Hey, you’re that comedian lady in the paper. A couple of people have said, “I’ve always wanted to try to do comedy”. And I say “why haven’t you?” and the answer in both cases was “well what if I’m not really funny?” to which I reply, Yes but what if you are? That’s the question I asked myself a hundred times over the years. And then one day the Yes but what if you are that I said to myself just made sense. And I took a leap of faith and got up on the stage and discovered that yes I am pretty funny and yes I absolutely feel fulfilled when I perform.
Years ago when I worked at Sohio Petroleum in Oklahoma City there was this older man that worked there. When the company announced the relocation to Houston, most of the people who were close to retirement took the retirement offer and retired. This man though didn’t. He decided that he didn’t want 80% or whatever of his retirement money. He wanted 100% and so he left his wife behind and moved to Houston for what he called his one year plan. He would work for one more year until he was the age he needed to be to retire with full benefits. Then he was going to buy a camper and he and his wife (who had already retired) would travel the United States and see the country. I remember it very clearly because I knew his wife and she really didn’t like the plan. She wanted him to retire, buy the camper and start living the life they had dreamed of. But he was stubborn. And so he moved. And he worked at the company for a year. And then he retired and moved back to Oklahoma City. And before he could buy the camper he dropped dead of a massive heart attack. And I remember thinking how sad it was that he had chosen to do what he did. Had he retired albeit with a little less money, he would have been able to see the U.S. with his wife, just as they had dreamed about for all those years. Instead, that extra money probably paid for his funeral.
It was a powerful lesson to me at the age of 25. It affected my decisions for quite some time. I hated Houston, neither of us were happy at our jobs, our holidays were spent making quick trips to Oklahoma to visit family, we had no extra money because of the cost of living difference to be able to do anything fun. And so we quit our jobs in a gigantic leap of faith, and moved to Dallas. It was a struggle! But I truly feel like if we had stayed in this place we hated, with jobs we tolerated, we would never have left.
I remember when we were trying to decide about having kids. I wanted to “just do it”. He wanted to wait until we could afford it. Which in my mind was never. Because something would always pop up to delay it. I won that debate and never regretted it. Even when we struggled financially. And when it came time to think about another, the same argument applied. And I won again. And neither of us regretted it for a second.
I’m not suggesting that people quit their jobs and move to other cities and have babies without any forethought or become stand up comedians. But no one else knows the desires of our hearts. And I believe that until you identify what it is you really want from life and go for it then you will never be truly happy or fulfilled.
I have a friend who has been going on a diet every Monday for the past 6 years because she needs to get healthy. By Wednesday morning the diet is by the wayside. Everyone has their own personal moment of reckoning..when they decide its time to do whatever it is they want to do. For me in regard to the weight loss it was seeing the video footage from the Senior follies and being horrified at what I looked like. You can only fool yourself for so long. I have another friend who has been engaged for like 8 years. OK, so either get married or move on! I know a man who has been getting a divorce for 3 years now……ok, you have to actually file for it….....and a friend whose dream is to get her degree….ok so you have to ENROLL in school to do that….I realized that I probably wasn’t going to find the man of my dreams if I never left my house….well, the pizza delivery guy is kinda cute..but young!
You have to start somewhere. If you hate your job (and you know who you are) then you need to find another one and not give up until you do. If you hate where you live (and you know who you are) then you need to take steps towards moving away from there. Because if you are waiting for more money, more time, someone else to make up their mind, the dream job to drop into your lap, the man to sweep you off your feet, to get healthy, to go somewhere you dream about visiting, then only YOU have the power to take steps toward that.
In the last couple of years I have had a major change in the way I see life. Maybe its age. Maybe its realizing that time is running out (not being morbid here but I’m not getting any younger). And so I have put forth some effort to create the life I want. Not everything I want has happened…but I’ve taken steps in the right direction. And some things are falling into place. I have a job I love, I have a hobby that I love, I have the relationship with God that I desire. What I want is to 1. sell my house,2. simplify my life, 3. be debt free, 4. be as healthy as I can possibly be and 5.find the person I will grow old with. House on Market which will accomplish 2 and 3 when it sells, I am exercising, eating right and losing weight and as for # 5 I have complete faith that it’ll happen when it happens. In the meantime, I have a full and balanced life. I’m pretty blessed!
Do I wish that I hadn’t wasted 5 years in a relationship that I knew in my heart wasn’t going to end in marriage? You bet! But I learned a lot about myself in those miserable days leading up to and following the breakup. Do I wish that I had gotten grief counseling when my mom died and I was overwhelmed with the sorrow instead of eating on 50 pounds and becoming diabetic in the process? You bet! Do I wish that I had tried comedy years ago? You bet! Do I wish that I had ignored the person who told me I had no writing talent and written anyway? You bet! Can’t change the past. I can change the future.
Carpe Diem!
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