Life and Death Lifestyle

It is very fitting that my very first blog is focused primarily on procrastination, since this very exercise of writing has been one of the top victims of this tendency.  I created this page in March, filled with anticipation and seemingly motivated to have a place to express my thoughts and feelings during the early days of this grief journey.  It is now September, and I’m finally taking the leap.  Enough said.

I’ll be honest-I’ve always struggled with procrastination, at times adopting it as a lifestyle choice.  Oh, I’ve usually been a responsible adult, showing up on time for appointments, paying bills on time, and in general following a reasonable family schedule.  But way too often, any optional activities were placed on the do it later list.  Eventually, the truly important tasks were completed. Over the past 3 months. I was overcome by a type of inertia never encountered in my adult life.  It wasn’t exactly depression, and I didn’t recognize this inaction as grief either.  Just yesterday, a light bulb moment occurred when I realized this as a form of grief, but from a different source.  For the past 15 years, I have lived a daily "life and death" existence.  Each day, the clear goal was to do whatever it required to keep Karsen alive while fighting the many ravages of Cystic Fibrosis.  My tasks were usually very clear cut, and decisions seemed easy-everything that wasn’t part of that goal fell away.  No guilt, no pressure, because that was clearly the only priority that really mattered to all of us.  So, most of my days were already prescribed for me, like many of us, but the big difference is these tasks were often life and death.  Now that Karsen lost his battle and  there are no more life and death decisions on daily basis, its become a herculian feat to get almost anything done. I'm understanding now that this isn't necessarily just procarastination, but the inability to figure out priorities in our family's life without the advent of life and death.  This is now my new challenge, and I finally feel able to take the steps to make this my new priority.