All The Best Laid Plans, Part I

I’ve decided not to make resolutions this year. It’s not that I don’t have goals—I have more goals this year than I think I ever have. It’s more that in the last three years, I’ve learned some pretty massive lessons about how easily all the best laid plans can be derailed.

Sometimes you have to let go of your own plans and ride the waves of circumstance until you can touch the ground once again.

For instance, at the beginning of 2014, I planned to write at least three books, go to several conferences in Texas, some in Utah, and one in Kansas and work toward building my career. I planned to blog every week and spend more time at the beach and read more books.

But stuff happened. 

1.       In January, I made an emergency trip to Utah for a funeral—the loss of a dear friend’s husband, who died too young.

2.       I spent February and March finishing edits on Birthright, and got it finished just barely on time for publication.

3.       In April, I traveled to Utah for a conference, where I spent just under two weeks so I could also deal with some family issues.

4.       In May, my oldest daughter graduated high school and my husband and his officers had a homicide case that blew wide open.

5.       In June, that homicide case took over our lives until the suspect was apprehended, and that same weekend, my husband was offered a fantastic job back in Utah.

6.       By July, we listed our house, packed up everything we own, and moved across the country. Again.

7.       In August, we unloaded into our current house (a temporary rental), my husband started his new job, and I moved my oldest daughter to Orlando, Florida where she is attending school.

8.       In September, I swore my life would calm down so I could finally do some writing, but then… we discovered a leak in our kitchen.

9.       In October, our landlords finally got around to investigating the leak, which led to mold and a full-scale kitchen renovation that was not complete until the week of Thanksgiving, and was distracting enough that my writing concentration was completely shot.

10.   This brings me to December. I put up my tree and hung the garland. I began my shopping. I bought my daughter a plane ticket to come home. I was prepared for full-scale holiday celebrating. And then my father-in-law died, and there was another funeral, estate details to work out, and grief to deal with.

The thing about death and grief, and also stress, is that it changes your priorities. In the cases of several of these events, writing fell way down the priority scale. My family is more important than my deadlines, and so in all of these cases, they have taken the front seat. I didn't read more books, and I sucked at blogging, and I didn't write nearly as much as I wanted. And you know what? That's okay. I could not have planned for last year.

What about you? What in your life is more important than your personal goals and deadlines?

*This blog turned out to be pretty long, so I’ve split it into two. To be continued next week.

Random Stuff I'm Thinking About

1. If you let it, life will pass you by. So take action, pay attention, and live now. You never know when your tomorrows will come to an end.

2. Everything we experience in life is a lesson learned. The difference for writers (and also musicians) is that we take those lessons and share them with others through our work. Sorry friends and family, you’re all liable to end up in a book or story at some point. That’s just how it works.

3. It’s okay to have a great idea for a book or plot or character while nothing else in your head gels as coherent. Sometimes, that’s how it goes. Take it when it comes.

4. Just about when you want to quit, you realize you couldn’t if you tried. So you take a little nap and then keep going.

5. Thanks to social networking, news (good or bad) spreads with super-lightening speed. (Big, huge thanks to everyone who has sent words and thoughts of sympathy and kindness this last week. They’ve all been much appreciated.)

6. Ben and Jerry’s makes the best ice cream, barely beating out Häagen-Dazs, who makes a really good mango sorbet. (Thanks, Becky!)

7. Retail therapy only works for stress. It doesn’t necessarily help with grief, unless you’re shopping at a bookstore. Otherwise, you’re better off going to a movie.

8. Sometimes it takes a wedding or a funeral to bring out all the family members you haven’t seen in years. Why is that? And can it be changed? And while I’m on the subject, why does it take a family tragedy to remind us to tell the important people in our lives how much we love and appreciate them?


Anything else that should be on my mind? I’m trying to get back on track, so help me out here.

The Thing About Families

No one can tell you the definition of what or who makes up your family. Common blood is only a small portion of the equation.

In times of grief, we hold each other up, give each other strength, and understand that sometimes words mean nothing while a strong pair of arms is everything.

For some, divorce is a break that causes an unbreechable chasm, while for others it becomes the means for the addition of more people to love. More parents, more siblings, more aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents that extend into uncountable numbers. Not just more people you love, but also more people who love you.

Blood may be thick, but a bond of love is thicker, stronger, and more important.

Sometimes we forget these things, because every family has several levels of dysfunction, of fault, of human frailty. And then something happens that makes us remember. Makes us appreciate each other. Makes us hold onto the only people who will always love us.

Family is the center—the core—of everything, in life as well as in death.

That is all.


*I hereby officially promise that next week’s posts will not be so depressing.

A Gift No One Else Can Give

I don't believe in coincidence. At least, that's what I told the owner of the body shop where my car was fixed a few weeks ago. Timing, yes. Karma, definitely. But coincidence? Not so much. I just have a strong sense of things happening for a reason.

Usually, I can deal with events that might seem like a coincidence or whatever. I don't generally need an explanation for why something happens one way or another, or why the timing of two events coincide--either terribly or beautifully. It just is.

But I do believe in Irony. It hits me in the face almost daily lately. It's ironic what happened after I wrote and scheduled Monday's post about Mockingjay and how it made me feel. Raw and emotional. Sadness and peace. Hopeful and achy all at once.

There I was, typing along and pondering all these emotions, when I got one of those calls. The kind we all dread, telling us that someone we love has been severely injured or worse. In my case, this person is my twenty-one-year old step-brother Justin. He was seen skateboarding, hitting a bump or rock, and flying backward where his head--no helmet--hit the pavement. Someone stopped to help, called an ambulance, but it was already too late for Justin.

No Helmet. No brain activity. Alive, with no chance he'd ever come back.

He's had such a hard life in his short twenty-one years, lived through a tremendous amount of heartache, difficulty, and addiction. But while his loss leaves us all achy and raw, his generosity will give others hope.

Justin was an organ donor.

The damage from the accident was mainly in his brain. All his other organs are intact, whole, vital. In Justin's death, many other lives will potentially be saved or made better. He will now give other people a gift no one else could offer, the gift of life. And Justin will finally have the opportunity to be at peace.

Is it ironic that this week in our local news there has been a rash of freak accidents, shot police officers, and unexplained deaths? I don't know. But I do feel strongly that Justin's time on earth has come to an end. Whatever happened on that hill, happened because it was his time to go home.

Just as it's someone else's time to live. To have hope. And to move on.

Give someone else hope. Be an organ donor.