~and we lived like we were dying~

I have always been in favor of the philosophy of making the most of every day you are given.
Last night, Mike and I did just that.  We lived like we were dying.
Although we hope to have many more good years on this earth together, we know that tomorrow is never guaranteed for any of us.

For that matter, neither is tonight and so I write.

Mike and I made the journey home to south central Kansas yesterday morning.  It's a trip of about 350 miles one way, give or take a wrong turn or two along the path.  Mike took a couple of days off from work, we packed up our car with a change of clothes and headed out by 8 in the morning.  We were off to see the group "Kansas" perform at the Fox Theatre back in Hutchinson.  It's been an event we've been looking forward to since early March when Mike bought the tickets to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary this year.  We were bound and determined to see them and one way or the other, we were going to be there.

Everything worked out just fine.  We made it in plenty of time.

We ran into so many folks at the concert that we knew from life in the "land of long ago and far, far away" and how wonderful it was to see that they too realized how important it was to see this group perform.  We knew that many more of our friends were going but as it was, the multitude of people gathered there made it next to impossible to find them all.  It was a packed house but we were fortunate enough to have two of the best seats in the theatre.  For the next nearly two hours we listened to some of our favorite Kansas songs and even heard new ones that we hadn't known existed. It was loud, so much so that I pulled out a pair of earplugs to soften the blow to my already tired 60-year old eardrums.  The music was great and the reaction of the folks in the audience was priceless to watch.

Kansas put on a great performance.  None of us were disappointed.

Our night out didn't come without a price.  The tickets together were $150, our motel room to stay the night was another $80, gas for the car was around $46 round trip, food to eat and other incidentals probably added in another $50 or so.  I guess you could say it was about a $300 date but that part doesn't even matter.

Not even one bit.

What did matter was this.  Instead of staying home and fretting over the multitude of things on my mind these days, like where I am going to find a job to teach next year or how am I ever going to get all of the weeds and grass out of the garden, we opted to go home to Kansas and have a great time. We chose to have fun and in so choosing, had the time of our lives.

There were plenty of added benefits to our journey.  Had we stayed here, we would not have seen dear friends from back there, many of whom had gone to the concert as well.  It was a gift to us, an added bonus if you will, to be able to make those reconnections with ones so dear and priceless to us.

These 3 kids were in my graduating class from Haven High School in 1973.  43 years later, we all found ourselves at the same concert in downtown Hutchinson.  Mike, Linda, and Jack all stopped to pose for a picture to remember that good night.

It was great to run into my friend Lori as well.  The last time I saw her was back in September when she walked with my family to honor the memory of my late brother, Mike Scott, at the ALS Walk on the Waterfront in Wichita.  Lori has been a good friend for such a long time.

Before the concert, we had the chance to stop off and see Gary and Rosie Price for a nice visit.  Mr. Price was our high school principal back in Haven, Kansas.  Later he would hire me as a teacher for Hutchinson Public Schools.  The Price family will always a hold a special place in my heart.  They are good folks who care about people, all people, including a young girl who grew up to be me.

So now we are home and the weeds and grass in the garden didn't magically disappear.  I still don't know where or if I will have a teaching position for the fall.  Nothing changed while we were away. Yet the truth is, I think we changed a bit. We are tired, but we are so happy to have gone.  Both of us have been taking life extremely seriously as of late.  There is always something to do here but just for last night, we made a change in our way of thinking.  Rather than worrying about things we probably couldn't do anything about in one day anyways, we did something different.

We lived like we were dying.