Have a Nice Day While You Still Can

The recent hospitalization of one of my favorite people has me re-evaluating how I spend my time, since, being genetically predisposed towards narcissism, I take everyone's life lessons and exploit them for my own betterment. I'm not proud of this, I'm just saying that's what I do--sue me.  The patient in question is my cousin Sydney, who has has been fighting with several of her own body parts for more than the last few years, and they are certainly worthy opponents; we are not dabbling in hips or knees, we are talking heart and lungs. Sydney always manages to come out on top, despite the fact that doctors keep barging in, their rubber-gloved hands ripping open her chest cavity, performing all sorts of scary procedures to keep her ticking. No slouch, Sydney's always gotten up for the next round. But as time marches on, how can we be sure she will this time too? We can't. And with the knowledge that there but for the grace of God go I staring me in the face, my whole sorry life is again coming into question as I wait to hear if the miracle workers can perform yet another one on Sydney.

One reaction I had to the news of my cousin's illness was to stay home from a meeting this morning, one that had been called for the volunteers at the local art museum, my latest attempt at injecting meaning into my life. Meetings be damned--I hate them! I've attended enough of them to know they are nothing more than an opportunity for whoever called the damn thing to flex his/her muscles and strut around in front of a large group of employees with less power. Besides, I can't for the life of me figure out what would impel a volunteer to attend a meeting, especially when eating the donuts is not an option since I have to be in a bathing suit in Florida in less than a month. (As chance would have it, my scheduled trip is to see my cousin Sydney. Here's hoping I don't have to go sooner.)

Another reaction was to once again strongly remind myself that life is to be lived every day and one should not fritter it away in meetings or hospitals or prison or working at horrible jobs or stuck in bad relationships. And one should exercise daily and eat right, especially grapefruit and broccoli, and one should do that stupid yoga CD that's on the coffee table in the living room right now. It's a drag, that's true, but much better than being in the hospital or in a meeting.