The death of a partner that you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with really puts a point on how short life is and how suddenly and unexpectedly it can all be over. My husband was only 61 when he died. There was a time when I thought 61 was ancient, but now that I’m in my 50s, 61 sounds quite young.
My stroke when I was 27 jolted me with the realization that any day could be my last. I’m realizing now that although there is some overlap, life is short is not the same as any day could be my last.
Any day could be my last drives me to notice and appreciate the sacredness in each day. It urges me toward gratitude. It makes me wake with the thought, “I get another day!”
Life is short motivates me to enjoy and savor the experiences I get to have and to stop looking at life as a to do list. It makes me want to slow things down.
These two thoughts together have made me become much more intentional about how I use my time. I’m very aware of what Oliver Burkeman calls “the finitude of life”—the concrete, no-way-out endpoint that awaits every single one of us. We’ll all die with something left on our to do list. Since my husband died, my goals are less about getting a lot done and more about being intentional about what I do and savoring those things.
Here are some of the practices that have helped me with this:
Planning a big adventure and a little adventures every week.
This is one of the practices Laura Vanderkam talks about in her book Tranquility by Tuesday. Vanderkam is a work-life balance expert. Last year, I took an online course she designed around the nine guidelines (she calls the “rules,” but I shudder at that word) she says will enable you to achieve “tranquility by Tuesday.” My favorite guideline is to plan a big adventure and a little adventure every week.
The idea is to do something beyond your normal routine every week. A big adventure is something that takes 3+ hours and a little adventure can be done in a week or two. Vanderkam says—and I have experienced this—that having these adventures every week will have the effect of slowing time down because there will be something different and memorable happening every week.
I have embraced this guideline with gusto. Some recent big adventures include spending half a day wandering around a neighborhood in Denver I wasn’t very familiar with, paddleboarding for the first time, and going to a dinner party where I knew no one but the host. Little adventures have included trying a new restaurant, making a new recipe, and calling a friend I haven’t spoken to in a while.
What I count as an adventure is flexible and evolves. For example, when I first began taking dance lessons, I considered each dance lesson a little adventure, but over time, as dancing became more comfortable to me, I stopped counting each lesson as an adventure. At this point, I’ve only danced with my instructor, so the first time I dance with another partner, that will likely count as a little adventure for me.
Being a minimalist.
One of my favorite minimalist writers, Joshua Becker, says that there is no one right way to do minimalism and what one person considers minimal, another could consider to be excessive or too Spartan.
For me, curating the material items I keep in my life gives me a daily sense of calm. I enjoy uncluttered counters and shelves and a space that feels like it has some breathing room. Of course I have stuff, and some would say I have too many books, too much cookware, and too many shoes. It’s easier for me to savor what I do have when nearly everything I own gets regular use.
Practicing minimalism makes it easy for me to give things away that I no longer need or love. I get more joy out of giving something away than I do from keeping it in a closet.
Minimalism also impacts the things I do. There are so many more things that I want to do than there is time for me to do them, so I have to accept that I can’t do all the things.
Related to minimalism is Swedish Death Cleaning, the practice of getting rid of things while you’re alive instead of leaving it to your survivors to purge your stuff (and feel a ton of guilt or anxiety about it).
Maintaining a gratitude practice.
I’ve had some form of gratitude practice since my stroke, but since my husband died, I’ve formalized it by keeping a gratitude journal. The practice is simple: every night, while the water for my tea heats, I jot down three things I’m grateful for that day. Last night I was grateful for how good the lavender in my yard smells, the pinkness of my dog’s belly, and that a toe that has been hurting hurt less.
Thinking of my books-to-be-read as a river to dip into rather than a to do list.
This is an idea I got from Oliver Burkeman. Making the shift in my mind was simple and I immediately felt lighter. When I thought of my book pile as a to do list, I always felt a bit of panic. “Holy shit,” I would think. “What if I die tomorrow and I haven’t yet read all this?!” And then I would feel tremendous pressure to sit down and start reading RIGHT NOW in case I died tomorrow. There was no savoring.
But once I started thinking of that pile as a river to dip into, I released myself of the expectation that I would ever read it all. I won’t. And that’s ok. Now I can happily savor what I do read. And if I die tomorrow, leaving the vast majority of the pile unread? It’s ok.
You must be logged in to post a comment.