Live Like You Know When…

“You have cancer” or “we think you have six months to live.” Those are words nobody wants to hear on any day of the week, let alone at any point in their lifetime. Unfortunately, people hear them every single day, and in that moment life as they know it changes forever. Think about how strange that really is. You can walk into a doctor's office worried about a test result and walk back out into the exact same world you left an hour earlier, except now absolutely nothing feels the same. The cars are still driving down the road, people are still going to work, somebody is complaining about their order at a restaurant and somewhere two people are arguing about something that probably doesn't matter. The world keeps moving like nothing happened, but your entire understanding of life just changed because suddenly you know something the rest of us don't. You know your time may be running out.

I have to imagine that the next morning feels different. The sun coming through the window probably looks a little different when you suddenly realize there are only so many sunrises left. That cup of coffee isn't just something you drink while rushing out the door anymore. The person lying beside you isn't someone you just assume will be there tomorrow. The voices of your children sound different. A hug probably lasts a little longer. Maybe you notice the breeze, the smell of dinner cooking, the sound of everybody laughing in the other room or the way your dog meets you at the door. All these incredibly ordinary things that we walk past every single day suddenly aren't so ordinary anymore. They're moments, and now you understand there are only so many of them left.

As I sit here writing this, I am fortunate. Nobody has told me that I have six months to live. I haven't been diagnosed with something that has given me an expiration date. But the older I get, the more I realize something that isn't particularly comfortable to talk about: I have an expiration date anyway. So do you. The only difference between us and the person sitting in that doctor's office is that they may have some idea of when theirs is coming. The rest of us get to walk around pretending we have all the time in the world.

For more than 20 years, I served as a firefighter, both volunteer and career, and during those years I had the opportunity—or maybe the unfortunate opportunity—to see just how quickly life can change. I witnessed scenes most people will thankfully never see. I saw young people die and old people die. I saw people wake up expecting a completely normal day and never make it home that night. When I was younger, I don't think I really understood what I was seeing. The tones went off, we responded, we did our job, we came back, cleaned up and eventually went on the next call. You learn to separate yourself from it because you have to. But looking back now, I realize the fire service was teaching me something all those years, and maybe I just wasn't old enough or ready enough to listen.

It was teaching me that there isn't always a warning.

Sometimes there isn't another Christmas. Sometimes there isn't another vacation. Sometimes there isn't another birthday, another ballgame, another dinner around the kitchen table or even another chance to say, “Hey, I'm sorry about earlier.” Sometimes there isn't another tomorrow. And as uncomfortable as that is to think about, maybe we need to think about it every once in a while because we sure live like tomorrow has already been promised to us.

I started asking myself a question: What would actually change about my life if I knew when?

If someone sat me down today and told me exactly when my last day was going to be, how much of the stuff that takes up space in my head right now would still deserve to be there? Would I really spend tonight angry about something somebody said at work? Would I lose sleep over somebody else's opinion of me? Would I spend three days carrying around an argument with someone I love because my pride won't let me be the first one to say I'm sorry? Would I sit on my phone scrolling through the lives of complete strangers while the people who mean everything to me are sitting ten feet away? Would I keep telling myself we'll take that trip next year, I'll make that phone call tomorrow, I'll spend more time with them when work slows down?

Probably not.

And that's where this really started bothering me. Why in the hell should it take being told we're dying before we finally decide to start living?

We spend an incredible amount of our lives waiting for life to get here. We wait for Friday, then we wait for vacation, then we wait for summer. We tell ourselves things will be better when the kids get older, when we make a little more money, when work isn't so busy, when the house is paid off or when we finally retire. There is always something out there in the distance that we're trying to get to. Meanwhile, the days we're wishing away are the same days that someday we would probably give anything to have back.

That's the part I'm beginning to understand more as I get older. Life isn't just the vacations, weddings, graduations and huge moments that make it into picture frames. Life is also sitting on the couch on a Tuesday night when absolutely nothing exciting is happening. It's hearing your family laughing in another room. It's driving your kid somewhere when you'd really rather be home. It's your spouse telling you a story you've probably already heard. It's sitting outside on a warm evening. It's the dog following you from room to room. It's eating dinner together, watching a ballgame, making coffee in the morning and complaining that you have to go to work. We spend so much time looking for the big moments that we don't realize those little ordinary moments are actually where most of our life happens.

And one day, one of those ordinary moments will happen for the last time.

That's not meant to be depressing. For me, it's becoming the exact opposite. It's a reminder to pay attention.

I don't want to live afraid that today could be my last day. I want to live grateful that today is one of my days. There's a huge difference between those two things. Living like you know when isn't about quitting your job, draining your bank account and spending the next six months doing everything on some bucket list. It's about realizing that maybe the argument isn't worth another night of silence. Maybe your kid doesn't need you to solve every problem; maybe sometimes they just need you sitting beside them. Maybe the person you love needs to hear you actually say it. Maybe the phone can wait. Maybe work can wait. Maybe whatever is eating you alive inside right now isn't worth giving another one of your days to.

Because that's what we're giving away when we allow something meaningless to consume us. We're not just giving it our attention. We're giving it pieces of our life.

That's time I don't get back.

And neither do you.

There are going to be bad days. There are going to be people who hurt us, disappoint us and piss us off. There will be bills, work stress, family problems, broken relationships and moments when life absolutely doesn't go the way we thought it would. Living like you know when doesn't magically make any of that disappear. Maybe it just helps us decide what deserves to come home with us and what needs to be left where we found it.

I think about all the people who have actually been given that terrible news and how desperately some of them would probably trade places with us for just one ordinary day. Not a vacation. Not a winning lottery ticket. Not some perfect Instagram version of life. Just one more morning waking up beside the person they love. One more dinner with their family. One more drive with their kid. One more Christmas morning. One more night sitting on the porch doing absolutely nothing.

And here we are, living inside some of those moments right now and sometimes barely noticing them.

Maybe we don't need to know when.

Maybe we just need to live like we do.

Maybe tomorrow morning when our eyes open, instead of immediately thinking about everything we have to do, everything that's wrong and everything we're worried about, we can remember for just a second that we got another one. Another morning. Another opportunity to love somebody, laugh about something stupid, fix something we screwed up, make a memory or simply sit still long enough to realize that we're here.

I don't know when my last day is going to be, and I don't want to know. But I do know there will be one. There will be a last drive home, a last dinner, a last laugh, a last hug and a last time I tell somebody I love them. I just won't know it's the last time while it's happening.

And maybe that's exactly why I should treat the moments I have right now like they matter.

Because they do.

So I'm going to try to spend a little less time worrying about things that won't matter, a little less time wishing days away and a lot more time paying attention to the life happening right in front of me.

I don't need to know when my life is going to end.

I just need to stop living like it never will.