My kiddo had a sleepover at Grandma's house on Friday night.  I did my usual nightly activities when B has a sleepover & woke up on Saturday morning planning to clean my house.  

I was listening to music & getting ready for the day when a thought popped in my head:  'I should go watch the sunrise from the lake'!  I quickly looked up the sunrise time & decided I could make it to the lake in time.  I was seriously cutting it close but I made it!  

I debated on even going in the first place.  Then I asked myself 'When this all ends am I going to miss cleaning my house or miss seeing the sunrise from the lake?'.  The sunrise obviously won.

I live my life a lot differently now.  When I saw firsthand how short life can truly be, it permanently changed my perspective.  I try to see the best in every situation.  I let a lot of things go.  I don't hold on so tightly anymore to situations that aren't serving my happiness.

I got this message on the back of a Splenda packet when I was making my tea the other morning.  I thought it was fitting for the situation I'm in.

Coincidentally, I got the same message yesterday morning from a Splenda packet when I was making tea at my mom's house.

I know it's just a cute phrase to put on a sugar substitute packet but it has been my motto for life lately.

If this year has taught me anything, it is that you never know when this life will be over.  

My mom & I were talking the other day about how some people's lives are cut short.  How some people don't have enough time on this earth.  I thought about it for a minute & realized that even if I live to be 100, it probably still won't be enough time for me.  We're all in a race against time & it will never be enough.

Using journaling to discover who I am.

After James died I noticed I was starting to fall back into the old habits I had before we got married...

I make them sound bad but I'm fairly wholesome so they're totally not!  Here are a few examples:

- I binge watched the entire series of The Golden Girls.  I used to watch the girls all the time after I got done working my first job out of high school.

- I started drinking soda again.  I used to drink pop at an alarming rate but gave up on it over the past few years.  Now I love to have a little can of Pepsi or Mountain Dew on my kid free nights.

- And, after watching one too many Tik Toks about the benefits of writing things down, I started journaling again.

I don't think I ever talked about this on my blog before but I used to keep some epic journals during my senior year & just out of high school.  I put a ton of random things in them & also wrote what I hoped for the future.  It all kind of stopped after I met James because I was actually living a good life.  I didn't need to dream about anything bigger.

Today is James's birthday.  Now it is just a date on the calendar.  There will be no more birthday cakes & celebrations with James here with us.  No one will get to see him grow older.

James will be 38 years old forever.

James had very few pictures from his childhood but we noticed a theme with most of them:  James was always in front of a cake!  It became a joke in our family every time James got around a cake.  The picture to the left is from his 38th birthday.  We always do birthday celebrations with our immediate family & I'm now so thankful for it.

My mom suggested getting a cake for James's birthday this year.  It's bittersweet but we still wanted to remember his birthday.

If I had only known his 38th birthday would have been his last.  But you don't know what you don't know.  I didn't know James would be gone just 9 months later. I didn't know I would be alone & crying on his birthday instead of celebrating.