Living for 90 Days at a Time

I’m in the pipeline for normal life again. Imaging is good, bloodwork is good (enough), Kiddo and Hubby are doing well.

In short, I’m up for living for another 90 days.

It was my mom who first called it that. She even said, “You should write a book and title it Living for 90 Days at a Time.”

It’s a weird thing, to deliberately experience my life from the point of view of a catastrophe. Because that’s the catastrophic news, isn’t it? “Sorry, you’ve only got a few months left.” As one family touched by cancer put it, “The doctors told us, ‘Go enjoy your summer,’ and we realized they meant that literally.”

It’s weird because, ironically, I’m less paralyzed by the idea of 90 days than I am by the idea of three and a half years. Because really, what can you do in 90 days? A lot, actually, but it’s a different order of accomplishable. It’s “take a trip,” but not “plan to save up for that dream vacation next year.” It’s “finish editing the book,” but not “start that next trilogy.” It’s “enjoy your family,” not “make a perfect job of raising your kid and being a wife and maximizing your own potential, too.”

Three and a half years til that “magic” survivability threshold… But three and a half years is just long enough to consider doing some of those big, “once in a lifetime” things…and I suffer a mental crowd at the door.

What the hell do I choose?

England, because I loved it and swore I’d go back? Or Japan, because I’ve never been? I really don’t have funds (or time) for one, but both is completely out of the question.

Or maybe…

Landscape the side and back yards, because it so desperately needs done *and* my kid would love it? Or convert the den into a real man cave because it desperately needs done and my husband would love it? I really don’t have funds (or time) for one, but both is completely out of the question.

Or maybe…

Should I sacrifice our lives here and move to be close to family, so we can all enjoy whatever time we have together? Or should I keep our lives here intact as long as possible, because destabilizing my husband and daughter’s long-term lives for a short-term crisis seems pretty, well, short-sighted?

With only a 90 day window, none of those are remotely plausible demands to make…not on me, my family, or our finances.

But three and a half years… What do I choose?

Or do I keep looking at things through that 90 day lens? Because I gotta say, 90 days feels (perversely) a lot more sane. More real, less illusion. More me, less “what I think I should be.”

More living, less Life.