It is amazing to me how one event can profoundly impact my own thoughts, feelings, and actions.
On October 13 one of the most amazing women I have ever known climbed the mountain from this world to the next. My dear friend Liz Adams suffered from a pulmonary embolism on the previous Thursday and was declared brain dead on that Saturday. One of the most shocking things about this is that Liz was an extremely active (mountain climbing, sea kayaking, scuba diving, etc...) person, who was the most emotionally stable and optimistic person that I have ever met, and who had a very healthy lifestyle in all areas, and ALWAYS had for as long as I had known her, which was the past 15 years.
Usually when a younger person passes away due to a medical reason, that person has either had a history of some sort of medical issue, or had had an unhealthy or partially unhealthy lifestyle to has contributed to the sudden death. But Liz had neither issue. i am sure it was probably either a fluke or some unknown underlying condition, but still it was such a shock.
I was glad to be able to attend one of the memorial services held for her, as I was not sure if there would be one close enough, as she lived in Alaska most recently, and her family is from Ohio, so both places were having a service. Luckily, the school she worked at in Massachusetts decided to also hold one for her friends and colleagues from the Northeastern US, which is where she spent about 10 years of her life between college and her early post college years. So I arranged for my mother to keep the kids overnight, and headed out to MA to celebrate her life, laugh and cry with old friends who loved her as much as I did, and connect with other friends whom I have neglected over the past few years due to life being busy, and not making those friendship a priority.
So health, not just diet and exercise, but the health of my connections with other people, has come to the forefront for me this past week. I am renewing my commitment to becoming healthier, in many ways, to sticking to my diet and exercise lifestyle changes and making them permanent rather than a means to an end. Committing myself also to being more socially healthy, not letting the tyranny of the urgent in life get in the way of the important connections with a wide range of people, like those many, many amazing people who have a piece of my heart, many of whom I have known for 15-20 years. Moving my mind and my actions towards finding a way to increase the wealth of my physical self, my social self, my spiritual self, and my financial self. Recommitting to finding more streams of income so that I can afford to drive out and visit friends, and maybe someday have enough stable income through working from home, that moving back out towards Boston would be feasible. So I am working on writing more on both the assigned article sites and on sites like Yahoo Contributors (of which I have put a link on the side bar in case others want to write for pay as well), and starting my Hub Pages, which I have yet to get off the ground.
May you, dear reader, enjoy all of the wonders that today brings, and give love to those whom are on your heart today. None of us are guaranteed a tomorrow.
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