perspective + changes

March was a difficult and introspective month. We spent some time visiting Larry's dad, who was in the hospital recovering from somewhat unexpected triple coronary bypass surgery. Scary, eye-opening stuff. As Larry and I were driving home to Virginia after several days spent in the hospital, we turned to each other and said "Life is f***ing brutal." It was a difficult thing to witness and it was definitely a thought-provoking weekend.

Larry and I have been making some pretty drastic changes to our lives since the beginning of the year, and the events of this month have further fueled our desire to change many aspects of our lives. We've been keeping to ourselves a lot lately, which has given me a lot of clarity and time to evaluate the choices we make, our health, and our relationships. My perspective on so many things has changed for the better over the past few weeks.

Between the quiet post and the productivity post and the changes we are currently working on, I feel like I'm going all self-helpy and inspirational, but never fear, my sarcastic potty-mouthed self is still alive and well. I'm just really liking this new direction and the new priorities in my life, and I'm feeling way more relaxed and motivated, which is an unexpected reaction to such a stressful event.

The changes we're making aren't things I'm ready to write about yet, as I feel like I set myself up to fail whenever I make set-in-stone lists of goals to accomplish. Instead, we're adapting and evaluating the choices we make as we go to achieve what we're comfortable with. Changing our lifestyle is bigger than crossing things off a list, so I'll share what we've accomplished if/when I feel confident that we've succeeded at making permanent changes. (Does that sound cryptic? I didn't mean for it to - we're simply trying to live healthier, smarter, happier and more aware.)

As for Larry's dad - his surgery was a success, we were impressed by the care he was getting (big thanks to all the hardworking and compassionate nurses out there!) and he is now finally home from the hospital. He has a long road of recovery and change ahead, but then again, don't we all?