Goodness gracious sakes alive, this has NOT been a good week  for some of my friends.

I won’t mention their names because they’re staying anonymous at least until they’re released, but one is in the Northern Hemisphere and one in the Southern Hemisphere so, as far as I’m concerned, this a global crisis.

The man who passed away this week wasn’t a close friend. He was a networking associate from years ago, but he was only 56, so losing him was a big shock. His name was Ty Belknap. He lived in Gig Harbor. He was an extremely nice person and a dedicated advocate in several fields, the most high-profile one being the global sex trafficking of minors (usually girls) across the globe.

The other two people are folks I’ve known for ten and forty-plus years. The local fellow is a dear friend who I make sure to visit with at least four times a year. He’s often with us during holiday gatherings.

The other is a lady who invited me to stay with her if I ever get to her neck of the woods. She has been planning to get to my neck of the woods for the past three years, but COVID came calling and threw a monkey wrench into that idea. She’s trying to make it sometime this year. They just need to make sure she’s hale and hearty enough to do that, given this recent scare.

I have been sooooo lucky to have never lost a parent, sibling, or close friend until I turned 47 years old 24 years ago. (That year, I lost my mom, my dad, and De Kelley in a 14-month period. If you had told me I could survive something like that, I would think you thought more of my resiliency than I did at the time.)

I know it’s going to start happening more frequently the older I get, and that I have to prepare for these eventualities, but when loved ones start running up against pernicious maladies, it makes me take closer stock of things.

Jackie and I were just talking yesterday about dying. Neither of us worries about our own deaths; it’s the deaths of loved ones that worries us. We both feel we’ve had wonderful lives (all things considered) and I, personally, think I’ve done pretty much everything I came here to do: there isn’t much else on my bucket list that leaves me feeling “incomplete” as an adventurer.  I’m not depressed and I’m not suicidal, but I’m realistic. IF I came down with a terminal illness, I very much doubt I’d try to extend my life by way of chemo or radiation. Death is an inevitability. It’s the quality of life that matters, not the quantity, at my age.

I was just thinking about the high hopes I had for myself as a teenager and young adult. It occurred to me while thinking thusly that I realized that no one else had the same expectations about me. Only I had higher expectations than they did about the trajectory of my life.  (Some expected me to marry, have children, etc. which has never interested me in the slightest.) And as it turns out, I did do exactly what I set out to do.

Could I have been more noteworthy and powerful as a legislator?  Certainly. But I decided a long time ago that engaging in politics at that level wasn’t for me. I’m too shy and introverted (and perhaps even a high-performing autistic) to engage in the photo ops, glad-handing and baby-kissing that are required to get anywhere, even if I had the money (or could attract it) to run a campaign. I’m a peacemaker, not a warrior. (And yes, we need more peacemakers than warriors in government. I’m just not cut out for it.)

I decided to chart my own path and do whatever was calling out to my heart to do along the way. So, I have very few regrets and I’m glad I realized that no one else was expecting anything more of me than I was, and  most if not all, were expecting far less!

I did my thing my way. And as I approach the final years of my life, I realize that my children (my books and other writing) will outlive me and bless a lot more people than I could have blessed had I proceeded in life the way others expected “women” to when I was coming up.  (I’m transgender, so I never bought into the “women’s role” because it imposed boundaries that I was utterly committed to crossing. But that’s another story…)

I want my hospitalized friends to get well. They both have a lot of living yet to do, and the spark and creativity to do it, so their journeys simply cannot be over yet. I won’t allow it.