My Days Are Numbered

Let me apologize up front: I am truly sorry if I missed your birthday or anniversary, if I didn't congratulate you on the new job, or if I failed to 'like' your child's latest accomplishment. It's not that I don't love my friends and family any more. Au contraire! I love you all more than ever. I have many wonderful people in my life--I love you, I love to see your kids, I love to read your news and interests.


But my recent birthday made me oh-so-aware of fleeting time: my days are numbered. Granted, that might be a very large number, but it could also be very small. One never knows. My baby's upcoming birthday drives home the fact that life passes by like a river: on the surface, it looks still and slow. Underneath, the current is swift and steady, ever moving forward. It seems like only months ago that she was an infant in my arms, and now she's taller than me. I can recall so clearly each of my kids as a newborn, but less distinctly their life as a nine-year-old. Time has accelerated somewhere along the way, and I am all too aware that it is fleeting.

If you know the Browns, you know we've had a hard year. As a result, I've reflected on my life, my values and my goals, and most importantly, how I spend my time. I'm trying to capture those usually-wasted ten and fifteen minute snippets and use them better to write, create, clean, improve.

I want to follow your news, send you good wishes, and keep track of your lives, but I find that when I'm doing that, I'm losing track of my own life and my own goals. I'm giving up scrolling down news feeds and timelines, reading articles and looking for recipes so that I can read more, write more, create more. I recently bought a sewing pattern and cut out material for a dress. Wow, I haven't sewn in years! I've outlined a new story, brainstormed a half-dozen others, and worked on a presentation to give in the next month or two... all in snippets.

I apologize again if I've missed something important in your life... but by not being online so much, I'm not missing something important in my own. I hope you will understand, and seize every opportunity to embrace life to its fullest. After all, your days are numbered, too. 

L'Chaim!
-PLB