Right In Front of Me

My biggest dilemma – for lack of a better word – with the Bunny dying has been this idea of “planning out the rest of my life (all over again, without him in it).” A distasteful proposition, to be sure… but as time goes on, the shock of him not being here is less… well, shocking. I remember that death is a natural part of life from the perspective that everyone lives and everyone dies – having no choice in the circumstances of either. So what can you do? Lament the natural course of life? I cannot do that, and as much as I think it completely sucks that the Bunny is not here to keep me company for the rest of mine… my instincts continue to push me forward; now I am starting to take a few steps of my own accord.

So I’ve had a lot of things to think about. I have my work. I have school. I have managing my kid, my house, my dog. I’ve been exploring areas of self-fulfillment, like learning to play the electric bass (I start my lessons officially in a few weeks). I’ve been reading lots of books, I’ve been brainstorming ideas. I’ve debated whether I want to still live where I am living, or if I want to move, and if I did move, where would I move to. The common thread to all of these thoughts has been this simple idea: what is TRULY going to make me happy? I was happy being married to the Bunny – all of our dreams, plans for the future, etc. made me incredibly happy. I think that’s why I feel such angst in now rethinking my life’s plan. If I manage to create a life that makes me equally happy.. does that mean I really wasn’t happy before? I still wonder about the answer. My gut tells me that is NOT the case… but there are plenty of times my brain and my gut are in two different places (usually my brain is way ahead). In this instance, things are reversed. It seems illogical to me that it is possible to achieve the same level of happiness on my own, when it clearly took two people to achieve the first time. But I have been wrong about some things before… and I am sure this won’t be the last time.

I had an epiphany about my work. If you’ve been paying attention, you will recall that one of my primary jobs is that of life insurance agent. I love the life insurance business in terms of its capability to help people in what I believe to be very significant ways, but at the same time it can be hugely frustrating. The biggest drawback for me is finding people to sit down and talk to me... traditionally this is accomplished through many, many, MANY telephone calls. I dislike making calls. Besides – like most people – there being a lot of inherent rejection worked into the activity, I think more so for me it’s the fact that I believe what motivates people to want to sit down with someone and talk about their life insurance is such an internal thing; in other words, I as the agent have absolutely no control over that decision, so from my perspective, me calling someone on the phone is not going to make a huge difference in them deciding to sit down with me and seriously talk about it. Throughout my insurance career (five years now, and counting) I have dabbled in other ways to find my prospects – referral groups, networking events, and the like – which have been somewhat successful but never to the point yet where I could just relax and have these relationships sustain the level of business needed to keep me “in the life to which I have grown accustomed.”

So here, now, being the creative genius that I am, I have decided to fully immerse myself into “the development of non-traditional ways of prospecting” because I figure with all the new emerging technology, and the advent of social networking and all of these other amazing tools, that now my way of doing business must also naturally evolve – and when I say “my way” I really mean the life insurance industry in the global sense. Life insurance is such an emotionally-integrated intangible, it’s a perfect career choice for someone like me. However, I still have to eat just like everyone else… but I am going to make it work on MY terms, in ways I can feel good about. Or I might as well forget the whole thing.

At first, I didn’t want to keep living in the house where the Bunny and I created our family together. It’s the house I grew up in as a child, and even when we first moved in here I was skeptical on account of all the bad childhood memories associated with it. But I happily discovered that good memories trump bad memories, especially when the good ones are recent and the bad ones are old. All of my memories with the Bunny – with the exception of one in particular – are all very happy. And now, here, six months later, all of those happy memories STILL trump the bad ones. I look around and I see the pegs the Bunny hung up in the kitchen for our coffee cup collection. I sit here typing on my computer, and I feel the breeze of the ceiling fan that the Bunny installed. I walk out into the backyard and I remember how proud the Bunny was building the doghouse for our boxer Winnie, even putting real shingles on the roof!

All of these memories are the groundwork I am now using for myself, here, now… it was always our plan – the Bunny’s and mine – to renovate this house. At the very end, we were talking seriously about buying it from my brother Sandy (who is the current owner), but it was going to stretch the budget too tight, so at the time we opted to wait. I am seeing that decision through… shortly, I will be the owner of this house, but not because it was the original plan. It’s because I realized that staying here and fixing this house up the way I want meets my requirement: it will TRULY make me happy. And then it hits me. Most of the things I’m thinking about now that are truly going make me happy are very similar to the things I had decided were going to make me happy when the Bunny was around. That’s the secret! I can’t change the things that are going to make me happy depending on who is around at any given time! That’s why I am still in school, too! I’m sure no one would have faulted me if I dropped out, one year left in my degree, because I was distraught over the death of my husband. But dropping out wouldn’t make me happy; going to school and finally getting my degree does… I do the things I do for myself, and my gut tells me the Bunny would be proud of me, because I am STILL doing those things.

So I guess I don’t have to rethink my whole life’s plan… I have a plan. I’ve been working the plan – the biggest challenge right now is to KEEP working it. To keep moving forward. Now, I know lately I haven’t been going nearly as quickly as I normally do, but as long as I’m still going in the right direction, I think it’s okay. So… I’m okay. And someday, down this road, I will wake up and realize that yes, I am incredibly happy once more. And to achieve that is a credit to the Bunny… and to myself.