Thoughts After a Loss - I didn't want to say much in my last post, because I didn't want it to be about me. I wanted to simply remember Twisted Ruth. I still felt fairly stunned by the whole thing. I didn't even know her that well. We'd met in passing at a few events, and I really mean literally just a few. I cannot imagine the grief I would be experiencing if she were one of my closest friends. She passed away apparently from a blot clot in her lungs. It makes me think that her ruptured achilles was the injury that threw the clot that took her suddenly, just as she and her husband were headed to dinner together.

Oddly enough, one of the things that struck me was just how many hundreds (okady, thousands) of photos I still have, unedited, unloaded, unshared. Just a quick skim through my sets that remain still not-yet-dealt-with, I'm back up to 195 folders of photos still "to do." There are 10,000+ files in those folders. There are 4,000+ files edited and on my photo website. There are 2.5x more to do, than are already done, if you look at numbers. There's just more than one gig uploaded, and over 4 gigs in the "to-do" pile. This worries me slightly. Of course, those numbers are inflated, because they do not take into account that I still have to purge the blurry photos and trim them down to "just the good ones" or the "I'll put up with this being slightly blurry because it's so unique and I cannot bear to delete it" photos.

How much of my life will I regret not having completed, if I were suddenly gone tomorrow? It's such a strange thing to contemplate "life as if this were the last day of your life" in more than just a hypothetical fashion. I have joked that I live in the juxtaposition between "I will live forever" and "today is my very last day." There's the freedom to plan and dream that you'll do everything you ever wanted (live forever mode) and the urgency to make today count, to treat each person I meet with the care and love that the REALLY matter to me, right now, right here.

Will I regret being still single, if I died tonight? I don't think so. I've tried to embrace loving everyone as fully as I possibly can in the most appropriate way possible, although so many times I fall short on that. I miss having a partner, in the hypothetical. I don't miss the reality of having made mistakes in my love life over the years. I suppose going to sleep alone is a small price to pay for the years I've seen so far.

I miss my (former step) kids very much, and dreadfully miss that I wasn't there during their high school years (having divorced their father, and not having any access to them). My heart breaks that their lives went through so much pain and anguish.

Most of the time I'm thankful that I can multi-task and take on so many projects and so many commitments. Occasionally, I'm downright disappointed in my inability to do everything. But I suppose I'm mostly okay with how I pick myself up after I fall, and keep trying.

I don't see my (born) family nearly frequently enough. That's my own fault.

I've adopted so many hundreds (possibly thousands) of friends-and-family through all the groups I've been part of, whether SCA or band or chorus or church or synagogue or class or fiber retreat or theatre or Ren Faire or friends of friends or college or tour groups or... It's common for me to walk in and greet my friends as "Hello Family!!" And they really are my family, too. No less or no greater than the family I was born with, I adore you all with all the affection I can muster with every fiber of my being.

I hope I keep living right, up until my last day.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Rae. I missed you too, and hanging out last night was perfect.