Make the most of your extra days

As I sit here in a frigid office on a February morning, I have some thoughts.

For starters, I wish I would have remembered to switch the thermostat from air back to heat before leaving for the weekend. Cold fingers make for error-prone typing. I’m also thinking about Mexico. Sure, the sun didn’t shine the entire time we were there, but it’s hard to beat warm weather, an in-room rum dispenser and evenings listening to Hootie and the Blowfish and a few other ‘90s bands perform live out on the patio.

On this Monday morning, I’m also tired of COVID. We’re in the midst of another family/office scare, and if that wasn’t enough to worry about, I had to hitch a ride to work this morning because my car won’t start.

So, it’s a little tough to find joy at the moment.

If my years of journalism have taught me nothing else, I’ve learned perspective. And in this case, things could most certainly be worse.

I could have not had heat at home last night. I could have had an hour commute to work today for a job I hate, with people I don’t like in a town I’d rather not be in.

I could have been like many of us and lost someone to the pandemic.

Or, it could have been me.

It reminds me of a column I wrote about Maggie Dixon in 2006. She was the coach of Army’s women’s basketball team who died at 28 of an irregular heartbeat a month after coaching her team to the NCAA Tournament.

I wrote about her as I was a couple of months away from being 30, and about how, instead of worrying about what’s going wrong, I should focus on what’s going right.

Sixteen years ago, I wondered at the end of that column what I would do with my extra days in this life.

Since then, I’m still married to the perfect girl. I got to watch my son grow up and we all started a little magazine.

It’s not a perfect life, but it’s a better one than I deserve.