Making Time

Another friend, not close to me, took her life a week or so ago. I only found out when I checked my personal FB page and saw my close friend’s post about receiving a farewell letter in the mail. Of course, by the time she received it three states away, our mutual friend was gone.

So this morning I spent the last half hour looking for the images I never sent to them of the time they came to visit me and I took them on a tour of Hollywood and Griffith Park on a smoggy Los Angeles day. I must have been working a lot because I only got to spend a day with them during their weeklong visit that included a celebratory dinner at Disneyland that I missed.

I miss a lot of things these days as I struggle to meet deadlines. Meetings with friends, walks to the beach and the lagoon, and so many more—I’ve missed too many. I need to make time for the things and the people that matter even if my work often consumes me.

While 2017 was the year of the Panic, Over-Ambition, and Never-Feeling-Good-Enough, I’m working toward making 2018 the year of Joy. I still need to set a deadline for each book but I’m going to be kinder to myself this time and actually stop to smell each rose instead of thinking to myself, well, that’s nice and all, but a full rose garden would have been better.

Every rose matters.

Every rose is beautiful.