I thought this topic was sort of a 'one and done' post but apparently the ordinary course of my life has circled me around back to it. Yes, most of us are putting off unpleasant (and sometimes even pleasant) tasks or conversations that need to happen. If you are one of those people who have zero idea what I'm talking about, then I applaud you for not being part of what I call the "Scarlett O'Hara mentality."

Scarlett O'Hara was the main female character in the book and the movie "Gone with the Wind." Given the political climate today, I'm not sure you can even find the movie anywhere to watch if you wanted to, as it's about the civil war in the US from the southern plantation owner's perspective. In any case, Scarlett's whole worry in the first few minutes of the movie is finding the perfect husband. She's conversing with one of her servants about this picnic she's going to shortly and we discover that every eligible bachelor in the county has either 'come calling' or asked to 'come calling.' But as she talks about them, you realize that she has already chosen someone in her head. During that picnic, their insulated world goes to hell, they are now at war and over the course of the movie, she winds up taking charge of her entire family, when it's clear all she really wants is to get rid of her burdens and marry the man of her dreams, who happens to love the sweetest, kindest, most self-sacrificing woman she knows, who is definitely not her.  

I'm not sure her life would have been any different had she declared her feelings to him, but one thing is clear. She didn't speak up and tell him how she felt, until it was absurdly too late. Of course, you could argue that she would not have ended up in love with the dashing reprobate, Rhett Butler, either, if she had.

There are several times in the movie where things go from very bad to worse and how Scarlett responds is this way: "I'm not going to think about that today...."  Which I think is the great procrastinator's mantra.  Because I think that is what we do to avoid dealing with things we know we should.

Why am I giving this topic a part two? 

I come from a big French-Canadian family on my mom's side. My grandmother had ten children. My mom was the youngest so at 60, I am one of the youngest in our generation of cousins. There are a lot of cousins. My next oldest cousin, who is three months older than me and also a redhead, is the one I'm closest to. After her, the wife of another male cousin is someone I've gotten close to. Even though she is 20 years older than me, and technically not my blood relative, we became good friends. I would go visit my cousins when I was a teenager and again when I was in college. I saw New York City for the first time with her. I went to Atlantic City to a casino for the first time with her and her two old uncles. I have a lot of good memories. 

As life went on after I got married and had kids, we lost touch for a while.  Then her special needs daughter passed from complications related to her medical condition.  We re-connected and would call each other occasionally.  Unfortunately, she was a chain smoker her whole life (she had a lot of stress) and had developed breathing issues and COPD. I tried not to call her too much because I knew how hard it was for her to talk for an extended period of time. She always worried when she saw bad weather near us and would call to be sure we were okay. Last year, her husband needed to go into a memory care unit (he had Alzheimer's disease that had progressed to the point where he could not live at home). She decided to go into the assisted living side of the same facility with him after a few months of living on her own. She was on Facebook and would comment on my posts there and she would call me. The last time I spoke to her was in December for maybe ten to fifteen minutes as she was very out of breath. 

There was an earthquake in the US last week, the epicenter was near where my cousins were in New Jersey. I texted her phone asking if they were both okay and posted that question on her Facebook page. I got no response. I had this awful feeling because usually she responds. Then I did something I didn't want to do and felt awful about it. I Googled my cousin's name and the word "obituary."  I didn't expect to see anything. 

Near the top of the search was a picture of my cousin as a young woman alongside an obituary. She had passed away in February and I didn't even know it. There had been a service, too. I would have liked to have gone, but not sure I would have as it was the same weekend as my husband's niece's memorial service here.  If you follow this blog, you will remember our niece tragically passed away New Year's Eve Day. 

I can't tell you how awful I feel that I hadn't spoken to her one more time. I kept thinking I should call her but kept putting it off. I've thought about why that might be, because our conversations are pleasant, but mainly because those phone calls are a constant reminder of hers (and my) mortality. I could hear it in the way she struggled to breathe.  I stupidly assumed that she would live on for many years in that state, because I didn't want to think about the alternative. 

My cousin's wife and I had conversed a few times about her dying and how I would find out about her passing. The really sad thing is that the person who was supposed to call me, passed away last year. That task of contacting me never got passed to someone else to handle.

Next Day:

Today was a busy day. I got stuff done. One of the first things I did was call the senior care facility where my cousin is at trying to get someone responsible for his care to contact me. I just want to know what happened to his wife, how she passed and to connect with someone who will tell me how my cousin is doing and maybe when he passes. I got the HIPPA argument from everyone, but I wasn't asking for information, just for MY information to be passed onto whoever was making decisions for him. I also broke down on the phone as I was telling one gentleman how I found out about my cousin. I don't understand why that happened as I've mentioned how to several people without getting upset. After being transferred three times, I was told my name would be passed on to the Executive Director and hopefully I will get a call from him.  

Then it was a visit to the sports doctor about shoulders and knees.  Okay, since this is a weight loss blog, I'm going to be frank with you people who are carrying extra weight. If you are carrying extra weight, you are going to pay for it in your knees when you get older, if you are not paying already. I told the doctor that I know carrying all that extra weight made my knee problems much worse and he said, "Remember that you said that. I wasn't going to say it.." and we had a silent acknowledgement between us of how I did this to myself by being overweight. By the way, he told my I was doing awesome with respect to my fitness, which is nice to hear. I wanted to shake him and tell him to not keep quiet about how being overweight impacts our knees. I have severe degenerative disease in one knee, moderate in the other, courtesy of carrying 50+ extra pounds for 25+ years.  There is no doubt that extra weight caused harm to my knees. I think the medical profession is too focused on endocrine and cardiovascular diseases. They never talk about how weight impacts our joints and advances degenerative diseases. It's always the big dangerous ones like blood pressure, heart health and diabetes. 

Because I got bombarded with medical stuff today and had to schedule physical therapy for other things, another visit with the sports medicine guy, I decided to stop procrastinating all this little piddly BS stuff I've been saying for MONTHS I wanted to get done. Now I was gritting my teeth, determined to get this stuff done before we go away for the summer.  So, called the A/C guy to service our A/C, called the pest control guy to spray for bugs (remember the crickets we had last year?), called a law office to set up an appointment to ask questions about a bunch of stuff.

And still found time to stand on our front walk to look at the solar eclipse, which was 98% in the "Zone of Totality" and watch the moon shade the sun. No, it wasn't pitch black.... more like late afternoon... I'm glad it was cloudy. We were able to get pictures with our phone through the clouds. If we'd been at our camp up north, we would have been in the 100% Zone of Totality, but it was nuts up there and we don't go before mud season ends. See today's solar eclipse photo above, courtesy of me! 

I feel accomplished, and more weight off my shoulders. I've made my life busier for the next month, but I feel like I'm getting things done that need to be done, which is a huge mental relief. I just have to show up when I'm scheduled, now and that's it. 

Just get out there and do what your head has been nagging you to do.....