In so many places, society rewards "hard workers" and everyone pretends to be one. It's not okay to miss work because you need a day to be a human. You have to be sick, but not just casually sick because that would imply that you could work through your sickness. You have to have one foot in the ER and one in the grave and your doctor has to make a really concerning face and tell you not to go to work for a week. That's how sick you have to be: one day doesn't do it. You need a week. Or you have to die or lose a limb. I remember when Grams died, one of my co-workers thought it was "strange" that I took three days off, not knowing that I had to make food for the showing, organize my entire family, go through her belongings. I was sleeping maybe three hours a night and I could've easily taken a week off and still had things to do. But work should've been more important. I should've taken one day and got back to it. And people reward that behavior with, "Wow you're so strong! You're so tough! You're such a hard worker!" That's the mentality and it's nuts. Kill yourself emotionally and physically for a job. It's more important than family, friends, fun, and health.

Look, I can work hard. I'd just rather bounce around and eat ice cream. I don't think that makes me lazy. I think that makes me really smart and brave for saying that out loud because that's what you want, too.

Everyone says "work hard, play hard" but I disagree. I think everyone really could work medium and play way more. Playing extra hard doesn't mean "going up on a Tuesday," it just means that framing your life around play is a powerful concept. Follow me yet or do you think I need to grow up and get a real job?

It's okay. Sometimes I find myself thinking the same thing. But the thing with this unlearning process is that I am constantly yelling at that part of my brain.

Get a real job. I have one and it's becoming a better human!
Make more money. Do I really need more money? And when I get more money, will that be enough then? Or are we all just addicted to idea of more money?
Have a kid! You're getting old! No. Maybe someday but not now. And I'm not old! I'm younger than I've ever been.
Buy a house. You're thirty and wasting money renting! Do I really need to own a house? Do I really want to pay for a new water heater when it dies? Do I even know where I want that house to be?

So my journey right now is attempting to prioritize playing outside, and making that the best thing I can do as a human. Working just supports that. Think about what would happen if everyone prioritized a simple, wildly fun outdoor activity.

Remember when you dreamed of adventure as a kid? I wanted to go to space. I had absolutely no idea what that entailed, I just wanted to float around and eat that astronaut ice cream. Not a lot has changed. But for a long time, I thought it had to.

It's taken me years to get to the place where it's okay to prioritize fun. I used to fold myself into this business casual person that tried, but really didn't attend to the wrinkles in her trousers. There was that Ann Taylor version of myself that I had held for my thirties that never really stuck. I tried. But it always felt like a costume.

Costumes can be fun. But playing dressup only suits me when it's my choice and it doesn't happen often. When I have to dress up for work, I feel like I'm playing a character. Like I'm totally Dagwood Bumstead.

Thirty meant something when I was twenty. I had all these preconceived notions about what thirty would look like, borrowing heavily from my mother's life. Being twenty something was about "finding yourself" and then you find you! And then you buy a house, have some kids, pay attention to the quality of your shoes and carve out a nice little life and be in the same place long enough to know your neighbors.

Except I am nowhere near living the life of my mother. And I think that's probably okay.

But what I cannot forgive is that I'm thirty and I'm just now facing all these crazy questions and I'm letting myself struggle with them. What am I supposed to do with my life? And an even scarier question: Will I ever get to the point where I will definitively know? And if the answer is no, is it okay to be okay with that? And if the answer is "exactly what you're doing: enjoy every breath," and has nothing to do with my occupation, how long will it take to actually accept that answer, unconditionally?

It is so easy to start piling up adult responsibilities so I don't have to face these questions. These questions are hard. They take courage to face. Sometimes I want to quit, buy a house and think about stock market stuff. "Adulting" is easier socially because it's fitting in with what thirty year olds are expected to do. Settle down. Have a baby. It's an easy diversion and what is expected and completely great and wonderful if that's truly what you want. And I'm not sure it's what I want. But it's what I always go back to when I'm unsure and scared and way too focused on the future.

But my friend Willie Nelson told me, "Time will take care of itself, so just leave time alone," and I think it's time I start listening to that man.

Sometimes I feel like the best thing I can do is have fun, laugh a lot, make sure I'm really enjoying every minute I can, and other times I feel unfocused, like I'm wasting time, like if I sat down for a second and updated my resume and really gave the job search a good college try, I'd be in a better position. But sometimes there's nothing better than having that feeling of a never ending good day outside on the slopes, playing softball, hiking with good friends, not even having a thought about laundry, 401Ks, presentations or groceries. It's all about fun. And it's possible until you die.

When I waver on "work sometimes, play always," it's because I let that old mentality of working hard and being professionally successful as being the number one ultimate goal thing creep in. But who is that profiting? So I can pay down my perpetual student loan sooner? Who cares? Since when did we willingly give up belly laughs and all day smiles to be more financially "responsible"? Since when did we give up playing outside till dusk when the streetlights came on so we could sit in our armchairs and sulk about how rough Monday is going to be? We traded in our grass stained jeans to iron our work slacks and for what? How does this make sense?

I get that you can have both. I get that having a house and kids can be a great source of fun and happiness. I get that jobs can be fun, that you can have a job that you work hard at and also have a lot of good times. And maybe I will get there someday. But right now, I'm not focused on that road, and I refuse to do something I'm expected to do instead of doing something that I really really want to do. And I've met people that seem to have lost the ability to enjoy anything. I was that person and I never want to be that person again. It's death while still being able to breathe.

Don't grow up. It's a trap. It's a costume. It's an act. Protect the right to be silly in the grocery store on a Tuesday afternoon. Wear socks with bears on them. Watch cartoons. Perfect your nose spoon game. Play outside till dark. Sleep in and do laundry later. Take a mental health day and call it a mental health day. Be irresponsible once. Or twice! Set a precedent of taking care of yourself, in whatever way is necessary, instead of glamorizing "busy" and "working hard." Have a real day of nothing and don't feel bad at all. Brag to your friends about how much fun it was to do nothing, or everything! instead of complaining about how busy you are and that you have no time. That's your choice, you know. I work hard everyday, but I'm working on my spirit and my health before anything else in this world. And so far, it's been the best few years of my life.

“I guessed that only at the last possible minute did the soul in a determined fashion flee the dying flesh. Who could blame it for its reluctance? We loved our lives more than we ever knew, and at the end felt the bounty of them, as one would say in church, felt even the richness of their missed opportunities, or just understood that they were more than we had realized during the living of them and a lot to give up.”

— lorrie moore

Uncle Brad always seemed to like Christmas. When I was 8, and the only niece/granddaughter for another year, Uncle Brad got me a super cool vinyl suitcase with a matching vinyl umbrella. Both were white with embellished neon pink and turquoise lines, in line with early 90s fashion. When I went off to college at Eastern Michigan, he bought me my first college sweatshirt and a calling card so I could call my long distance boyfriend. The next year, he bought me a string of Christmas lights that were lit-up cows with Santa hats. I hung them proudly in the kitchen of my college sophomore year duplex. They paired well with the Bruce Springsteen chore chart and giant Bob Dylan head poster.

When I was home to visit at the tail end of October this year, Uncle Brad asked for the Anderson's bag to be brought down from his room. He unearthed a set of tractor Christmas lights he had been saving for 20 years, in the same bag he bought them.

"Those were like the cows you bought me," I said. He didn't remember. He smiled broadly looking at the box. We didn't talk about time. It didn't matter what day it was. He wanted to hang them up for people to see them. So did I. After four days of puzzles, leftover lunches and the beautiful leaf-littered farm, Uncle Brad hugged me weakly before I caught my plane back and thanked me for flying across the country to see him, even if it was just for 4 days.

He passed away 7 days later and I catch myself forgetting that it happened, then accepting it happened, and feel everything all over again.

My dad gave me the news that they gave my Uncle Brad "one month" on October 2nd. I cried so hard I couldn't breathe. I drove my Jeep through the mountains haphazardly and pulled into the beach parking lot to cry until I felt people staring.

There are many people that deal with death gracefully. They understand our mortality in a matter-of-fact way and I'm sure they all grieve, but an edge seems to be missing from their view. I've never been able to grasp this, let alone practice it. I am reduced to a depressed, hollow shell of a person for weeks, desperate for something to be funny again, but always going back to the fact that I will never see this person again. The finality shakes me until I eventually wedge things in between the sadness. It fades, but it never disappears.

When my Uncle Brad died, I told myself that I had a lot of time to prepare. I told myself that it wasn't a shock, that I did my best to see him before he transitioned, that it was okay that I couldn't go to the funeral. But me as a whole felt like I had failed. I felt selfish that I had chosen to live 2,000 miles away, especially when my whole family assembled after the funeral to light his fireworks and drink his homemade wine. They sent him off in such a beautiful way. That was closure, Ronau style. But what was I supposed to do?

The first news with ticking time attached is always the hardest. Crying always feels like it has no bottom until you become aware of your surroundings and that someone may be feeling uncomfortable. But you never feel like you're done, like the sadness of this person being pulled away from you in this strange doctor-given time frame ever leaves. It just hangs there, in the door frame, in the last holiday photo, in the tractor Christmas lights he wanted so badly to hang in October, and it never leaves.

Maybe I don't want it to leave. I'd rather be sad than forget. And all of these people that have left, that still stir the hollow crying, the deep sadness that never goes away, I'll take it to remember we had you for a while. How incredibly lucky are we?

Last week, my acupuncturist led me through a powerful Tibetan trauma practice that helped me reach the closure that I sought. It's called Phowa (pronounced po-wa) and it helped me transition through the grief and the guilt of being far away from my family at this time. If you're dealing with grief, even years later, consider reading through this practice. It's an amazing way to process the transition of death.

Read about Phowa here.