Procrastination

Does your life have a theme?  A better question is, should a life have a theme?  One theme for the whole thing, or maybe a theme for certain periods?  A good friend of mine introduced me to a saying that seems to be stuck in my mind right now.  It goes something like this (I'm sure she'll correct me if I get it wrong):

People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

She and I have discussed this at length because there truly are people who, while they might seem like friends who will be around for a lifetime, you reach a point where you think maybe they really were just "for a season" friends.  I can look back on my life and see where certain people were only good for a season!

So maybe a "life theme" is the same.  Maybe each "season" of life has a theme all its own.  This would explain my feeling of being stuck in a season of procrastination right now.

I made a New Year's resolution to choose a daily theme song for myself in 2012.  There was really no reason for this other than it gives me an excuse to waste an hour (or three) every day listening to music and trawling through iTunes looking for a song to be that day's theme.  Essentially, I made a New Year's resolution to spend a little time every day procrastinating. 

Who does that?  Don't most people make resolutions to be better people?  Not me I guess.  I make resolutions that allow me to continue being bad.  I just wordsmith it to sound like I'm doing something positive.

I know what you're thinking.  Brilliant! 

So why am I in this procrastination rut?  I have so many things that I want to do.  Make more jewelry.  Find a niche here in Okinawa to be able to sell some of it.  Keep a cleaner house.  Cook more (instead of sticking my husband with that job all the time).  Those are all minor "wants" really.  The one major accomplishment I hope to someday add to my Life Resume is that I want to write a book.  More specifically, I want to write a book about Keeghan.  I've been saying it for years, but I haven't done it.  Instead, I find 101 different ways to busy myself so that I don't have to sit down and face this blank screen and face the fact that I am terrified to write his story.

Part of my fear is that I don't know why anyone would want to read it.  It's the story of a boy who fought cancer and lost.  Of a family broken.  Of three people left behind with scars that are invisible to most, but huge and raw and painful and unending to us.  Who wants to read that?

But I know his story - our story - is so much more than that.  Keeghan was more than his cancer.  He was wickedly smart and sarcastic and just . . . wise.  For someone who only lived 12 years, he seemed so much older.  Even before cancer reared its ugly head, we all knew that Keeghan was the wisest of this Fantastic Four we had built together.  When Mike, Mackenzie and I were acting like total dorks, it was Keeghan who looked down on us from his High Pedestal of Maturity and rolled his eyes like we were errant children that he would never understand.  Of course, then he would jump off the pedestal and join in the dorkiness.  But we always knew he was superior to us.  He was always meant to be the Leader of this clan.

Maybe that is where my story lies.  Keeghan may have died, but in so many ways he still is the leader of us.  We have joked often about getting bracelets that say "WWKD" on them, playing on the whole What Would Jesus Do spiel.  For us, some things just come down to, "What would Keeghan do?"  He's still leading us.  We are still learning from him.  

People have told me how strong I am, and I always laugh and tell them they have no clue.  The truth is that I live in a world of avoidance and procrastination.  The truth is that the minute I sit down and start writing about my son, I am a river of tears.  Kind of like right now.  So many of the things I do in my life are because of him, and he is always right there, in my mind, in my heart, but the minute I let his life start coming out through my words, I buckle.  Maybe telling his story, sharing it so that it isn't just mine anymore, is a little like letting him go.  But he deserves to be shared.  His strength and his courage in the face of something so horrible was awe-inspiring.

This Season of Procrastination needs to end.  Like the friends who come into your life for only a season but then have to go, this season for me needs to go away also.  I need to be willing to cry, willing to re-experience pain that I would far rather keep locked inside.  But I know I can't do that.  The writer in me wants to write the story.  The mother in me wants to share my baby with the world.  It's time to take out stock in Kleenex and start writing. 

Wish me luck.

Today's theme song is one that I have always thought of as Keeghan's song to us, but today it is my song to him.  It will be me Bubby.  I love you.

It Will Be Me - Melissa Etheridge