And a happy thanksgiving to you…

Just want to wish everyone out there a happy (U.S.) Thanksgiving. I hope you’re having a wonderful turkey day, and that you’re with those you care about and who are part of your lives.

How time flies when you’re having fun…. A year ago at Thanksgiving, we were preparing to go out for dinner, because Laurie was just out of the hospital and neither of us was really up to or motivated to do much cooking. Tradition is nice, but sometimes, you just want to let someone else screw with the turkey and dressing….

Last Thanksgiving was sort of our first chance to exhale and realize that hopefully the worst was over (and for the most part, it was); in the two months prior, I’d left Apple and then started at StrongMail, Laurie was still interviewing, and then some “bad indian food” turned into a midnight visit from the paramedics and 5AM emergency surgery, followed by more semi-emergency surgery a few days later when things went sour (phone calls you never want to have: “your wife is going into surgery — now. You probably want to be here. Oh, and don’t worry, she’ll be fine…”)

So this year really turned into one about getting back to normal, whatever normal is when I’m involved. Laurie went to Yahoo, where she’s off fighting the good fight and making sure that whenever you want to visit a site like this, you can. She had her final surgery in March, which wasn’t the end of things, but at least it was the beginning of the end of it, but we really spent much of this year working together to get her past all of this and getting our lives back to some semblance of how we want things to be (successfully, I think).

I ended up deciding StrongMail wasn’t right for me — through no fault of theirs, I add. I went back to the plan I had started when I left Apple and took my sabbatical, and a month ago started up with Laszlo Systems; in retrospect, if I’d listened to myself, I could have gotten it right the first time, but I talked myself into making what I thought were good decisions for the wrong reasons — but fortunately, I also was smart enough later to realize it and do the right thing. (but that’s for a different posting, some other time…)

And for me, it definitely was the right thing; a few weeks ago, I woke up and realized I was happy, that I was really satisfied with my life again.

That may sound trivial or silly, but it’s not, and it goes back over four years, to foo camp 1, when I first realized something wasn’t right in my life. While I’ve hinted at it tangentially before, it’s not something you can really talk about until you’re sure you’re through it — and I know I’m finally there. (but again, different posting, some other time).

So the last couple of years was all about putting myself back together and figuring out who I wanted to be, and the last year was also really about supporting Laurie through her challenges and helping her get back to the life she wants. This next year, I hope, is about living the life I’ve come to realize I want and helping Laurie live her life as well, and making the changes we want in our lives to allow us to head into the next ten or twenty years we want to have together.

We just celebrated our 20th anniversary, and Laurie having celebrated one of those important but un-nameable birthdays that have zeroes attached — and realizing just how close we came to having neither — it’s really changed how I view things and how I focus on life. you can get so tied up with work, and so focussed on planning for tomorrow that you don’t realize that today may be it. sometimes tomorrow DOESN’T come. So life has to be a balance between thinking about later but not forgetting to live in now; and that’s a hard lesson to learn, but one you should feel lucky if you avoid learning it the hard way.

And my Thanksgiving thought to all of you is this: think about what the priorities in your life are, who the important people in your life are. Are you putting your time and energy into your life in a way that fits those priorities? Especially here in Silicon Valley, it’s hard to get your priorities screwed up and become emotionally tied in things, especially letting work take over beyond where it should. If you say “your wife” or “your kids” are your real priority, then why in the hell are you missing another soccer practice for that stupid meeting? it’s about understanding your priorities and balancing the challenges of your life to match up with them. It’s easier said than done — it’s very easy to get caught up in the flow and the moment, and think you can get to soccer practice tomorrow.

But what if tomorrow never comes? Don’t think in terms of “what if I lose her tomorrow?”, because down that road lies nothing but unhappiness and worry, but instead consider “if I were to lose here, what do I wish I’d done before it happened?”; and once you figure that out — well, don’t be an idiot, go do it.

Happy thanksgiving to all of you; and may your thanksgiving bring you joy and comfort and the company of those you care about, and may you have that for many years to come.

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