This post seemed appropriate to share before the weekend!  Have a wonderful two days of fun y’all….

Before we had kids we both worked. A lot. We loved our jobs and our careers were huge part of our identity.

One night at a dinner with friends they asked a question you’ve heard a million times. How are things?  What have y’all been up to?  My reply was always the same, “we’re good, really good, busy, work is super busy.”

But that was it. That was all I had to say. Things are good, work is busy.

When we got in the car I looked at Justin and said, what do you say when people ask you how things are and what’s going on? He said, I say good and I’m busy with work. I was like, I mean is that it? Is that all we have now? Things are good, work is busy? We used to have more to say, more we did, more to talk about!  What happened?

We thought about it for a few days. It was literally what our lives had come to. We worked hard all week and we stayed in on the weekends working or relaxing and recovering from the week. Maybe we would go out to eat but we usually just ordered take out.

I talked to Justin about it. We needed to do more. We were young and fun, and we were literally wasting it all on work.

The next weekend we made plans. I don’t even remember what we did. I am pretty sure someone asked us to dinner or something that we would usually say no to, but we said yes. We went out and we had a blast. From that moment on we started saying yes.  Yes, to us.  Yes, to our people.  Yes, to Life.

We said yes to everything. Football tickets, parties, drinks, trips, events. If there was an opening of an envelope we were there. We lived our best lives. It was one of the best years of our married life.

Kids came not too long after this. Things slowed down,  but they didn’t stop. We hired babysitters, asked my parents to watch the kids or took them with us. We never used them as an excuse. We might not be there for a long time, but we were there for a good time.

Because of this our kids love a good time too. They want to know where we are going and what we are doing. Together we are living our best lives.

It’s not always easy.  Sometimes I really just want to lie down and sleep, but I go anyway.  It’s no longer worth it to me to say, oh well we will see them next time.  A few weeks ago, I had booked a babysitter and we were going to White Linen Night, an annual tradition of ours.  We were literally leaving the next morning on vacation and I wanted to tell Justin I was tired so bad I just pulled it together threw on some makeup and we went.  When we were having a drink I mentioned how tired I was but that I didn’t want to mess up the night.  He said, “I was tired too and I almost said something to you but I am so glad I didn’t. There are so many times when I am tired and could stay home but the truth is I never regret going once we are there.”

It’s so true that many times we talk ourselves out of things and if we just did it we would probably have fun.

The truth is in the last two years I have lost two college friends to cancer and one to suicide. I have had numerous friends diagnosed with breast cancer, MS and other sicknesses. Life is not guaranteed. Nothing is.

My plan is to end this life used up, smiling and slightly tired.

XO,

Tippy