Enjoy today, worry tomorrow....

I get so caught up in the necessary routine of daily life, the worry about paying bills, going to appointments, getting lab work done, that I sometimes forget to just enjoy the day.  My life’s canvas paints new colors all the time and entwines them with the fading colors from yesterdays, with my memories of childhood. Like this very vivid memory…

My Aunt and Uncle picked me up in the blue hatch back station wagon on their way to their high school reunion, maybe their 20^th?  Yvette, my cousin and best friend, feverishly waved her hand motioning me to climb in the very back with her. I got in the wagon, threw my leg over the slippery blue upholstery, and glided in to the very back where only groceries and luggage should go.  The short ride to the county park proved fabulous as we opened the glass window in the hatch back and felt the wind whip around our hair.  When my Uncle parked the car, we sprang out of the back, pushed our now frizzy and very large hair down and raced each other to the pavilion.  The whole day we enjoyed food, games, music and each other’s company.

My Aunt and Uncle were having such a wonderful time with all their friends that the party continued at a local restaurant. The patio found the adults engrossed in conversation while all the kids enjoyed kid stuff. Since cell phones and game boys were just figments of someone’s imagination,  we just ran around and laughed and played, calling Marco and Polo, or wondering if the donkey lady really had a phone number. The night wrapped up sometime in the early morning and off to the back of the blue hatch back station wagon we went. This time I needed no prodding to climb into the back, it was just big enough for us to lie down.  I spent half the years at Yvette’s the other halves she spent at my house, so that night her room was the ticket.  She turned on the radio, said good night to her Adam Ant poster and we listened to Madonna asking her daddy not to preach as our eyes grew heavy and our conversation trailed in between quick moments of sleep.

This month I found myself remembering 25 years ago; my high school graduation, Yvette’s high school graduation. I didn’t go to a park, or take my daughter with me, or pick up one of her cousins.  I sat here quietly remembering my Aunt and Uncle’s fabulous reunion and wondering how I caught up to them so quickly.  The colors I made with Yvette etched so deeply in my mind and on my life’s canvas. I didn’t know why at the time, why everything we did was big and bright and memorable. She blazed through all she did and 25 years later I can still hear her laughter and see her smile.  She lost her brief battle with cancer in 2009, when her daughter was just getting ready to graduate from high school. If she could tell me anything right now, I know she would tell me -  enjoy today, worry tomorrow...