A Job for Future Jen...

I like to jokingly say that my biggest strength is that I'm fully aware of my weaknesses.

It's kind of true, by the way. I mean, I have other strengths, like I can read fast, and sometimes I think of the right thing to say at the right time. But more often I think of the wrong thing to say. Like the time the customer at the theater complimented my scarf. What I fully INTENDED to come out of my mouth were words along the lines of, "Thank you, scarves are so easy! You just throw them on and BAM! It looks like you tried."

What came out of my mouth instead was, "Thanks! I like to tie things around my neck."

That customer has avoided me ever since. I'm not even kidding. He comes to the movies kind of a lot, and every time, wide circle around me.

Can you blame him? I can't. And it's even worse when I see him and I have a damn scarf on again.

What was I even talking about? OH! Weaknesses.

So, one of my biggest weaknesses, if not THE biggest, is that I'm super, super impulsive. Like, in sometimes dangerous ways, but more often, in completely mind-numbingly stupid ways. Like the time I was a Verizon customer for six hours before realizing they have no signal in Sheldon. Or the time(s) that I ate an entire pound of chocolate in something like 30 minutes. Or the large pizzas.

All the times I spent a lot of money that really would have been better served not being spent, but the sale ended TODAY, or it could be COMBINED with a sale, or something.

When people muse about how many of us live in the past, or live in the future, and how few of us fully embrace the present, well, I kind of don't understand that.

I am a fully-in-the-present kinda girl. All the time. I seize moments on the reg. Or procrastinate on the reg. And every time I recognize that I'm making poor decisions (and I always do when it's happening, because, like I said, it's my biggest strength), I think to myself, that sounds like a problem for Future Jen.

Future Jen hates Present Jen. But then again, Future Jen is by that point Present Jen, and Present Jen is Past Jen, and it's all a little confusing, but the end result is that I'm often filled with regret, and whatever food I can't stop eating at the time.

And, even worse, people can rarely talk me out of my poor decision. My sister, bless her heart, tries all the time. She knows how I'll feel afterward, so she acts as my own little Jiminy Cricket. And even though it almost never, ever works, she just keeps plugging away.

But, again, this is something that I struggle with. I don't dwell on the past, and I don't worry a lot about the future. I basically just try to completely embrace this moment. Yes, this one. Right here.

This past Saturday night, Vernon County Cancer Relief had their annual fundraiser at the Eagles lodge. I love this organization, because I know for a fact that 100 percent of the money raised goes to benefit local cancer patients and families. That's pretty sweet, and a lot of people have benefited from those donations since the organization was founded in 1987.

We generally have a couple of speakers at our benefits, and this year my amazing childhood friend Misty Caldwell Shepherd was one.

Misty had this really, really cool mom. She was peppy and cute and happy all the time, just this petite little woman with enough life in her for someone twice her size at least.

Susie was just always happy. I never saw her mad, although I'm sure it happened. And she was so young and vibrant.

That's why it just absolutely sucked when she found out she had cancer the summer before last and only lived months after that.

The thing about Susie was that she seized every moment. She urged people to live life to the fullest, and she was the embodiment of that. She overcame great obstacles, and she just kept smiling.

We could all stand to be a little more like that. I see that spirit in her daughters, and I know that she will live on in all of the people she touched. And I don't ever, ever think that she had one wasted moment. She was fully present in every one of her days, and if that wasn't true, she sure had us fooled.

And that, THAT is what we should all strive to be. Live every moment, even the ones where you're super full and miserable from eating all the time, even the ones where your heart is absolutely shattered and you don't know how you're going to get through this moment, there's no way, it's too much...

you just gotta OWN those moments.

Because we're beautifully, brokenly, absolutely alive.

So I'm proud to live a life like Susie Caldwell, and be fully present every day. And I know I'm not the only one to take that lesson from her example. I'm going to seize this moment. And then I'm going to seize another.

Although I do need to work on my impulsivity.