Wishing Life Away

I've recently been thinking a lot more about how much I wish my workweek away since the death of one of my colleagues.  Only 60, she died of cancer last week.  I hadn't seen her in months and in fact, didn't know she had left work because of illness.  But the news hit me like a ton of bricks.  I'd known her since undergraduate school and then we attended the same grad school together.  She had returned to school at the age of 40, determined to get her degrees. She did and then proceeded to teach at the same school I did for a long time.

I don't know if hers was a life well lived, but I think it was.  I'm 43 now, and I can appreciate her returning to school at 40.  I've recently begun this journey as a writer, and while I'm pretty new to it as a published (or soon to be published) author, it's opened up a lot of areas to me just as her returning to college must have done for her.  There's the writing, which is the most enjoyable part; the submissions, which I can't lie haven't been bad since I only submitted one book to one publisher and they offered me a contract; the planning for marketing for when the book comes out, which I think could literally take over my day if I let it; and many other things, such as this blog and my website, that are involved in the journey. 

So often, I wish my Mondays through Fridays away because they're the days I do my "day job." When I was a child and I used to say I wish summer would come because it's always been my favorite time of year, my mother would caution me not to wish my life away.  I've been thinking of that for the past week since Sandi died, and I think I must make a concerted effort not to wish each day away because I get to enjoy my weekends writing.  Hopefully in doing so, I increase the possibility that my life is a life well lived.