While trying to learn about dying, I learned how to live

By Diane Dennis

Lifestyles Northwest, Jun 30, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Diane Dennis is a life transition coach appearing monthly on television’s “AM Northwest.” Contact her at 503-972-3441 or Dianeden@centurytel.net or visit www.lifetransitionguide.com.

Living in the future. We all do it to one degree or another. Remember when you had your whole life ahead of you? Probably somewhere in the sixth grade on the cusp of puberty and during a very boring math class, your mind would take off. You would dream about the future, especially if you are a romantic like me.

One day I was Nancy Drew solving the mystery of the century. Another day I became a princess, just introduced to Prince Charming. I’d while away the hour, pining for another time and place way off into the future, until Mrs. Cranky Face, my third-period math teacher, would ask me a question pertaining to her lecture. I’d come crashing down, making a hard landing in reality, face flushed and flustered until her humiliating interrogation would be interrupted by the bell.

There comes a time, maybe when you have sat at the bedside of a dying friend, or you’ve had a health scare, or you wake up one day and your children are gone and have left the premises. That’s when you wonder where time has disappeared. How did all of those years evaporate into thin air?

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