As long as I can remember I don’t think I’ve ever had a December like this one. It’s just…weird. Best way I can describe it. Where it’s leading me I have no idea, but we’ll see I suppose.

Issue 7 ends this week folks! I can’t believe we’re there already. Crazy. Stay tuned. We’ve got some stuff to talk about later this week.

There are a lot of reasons why I really like this time of year, one of which is the inevitable reflection that comes with the passing of one year into the next. You look back on the year and at least hopefully feel like you’ve accomplished something, like things progressed and your life moved along in some meaningful way. As I said in this week’s Monday Update, I also like it because folks just seem nicer this time of year, getting into the spirit of the Christmas season and all, either because they really dig it or because they feel guilty for being the same level of jackass they spend the rest of the year being. Either way, it’s all good. I don’t much care about the why or the how, just the end result.

Today, completely out of the blue, I got an email that really caused me to sit back and think seriously about things for the first time in a long time, and it was one of those lucid, sort of profound moments we experience from time to time that seem to stick with us long term.

I’d be completely lying if I didn’t admit right up front that lately, particularly since Logan was born, I’ve been thinking about my own mortality. It’s not really something I dwell on a lot, but still, I’ve thought about it far more recently than I ever have before. Is that some weird side effect of having a kid, you start realizing that you aren’t getting any younger all the sudden? I don’t know. Maybe it was also because I went through a complete heart workup earlier in the year when some concerns cropped up. I honestly don’t know. Fact is, we get a year older with every passing birthday, and that’s something to at least acknowledge, and reflect on I think. I’m not now and have never been one of those dreading getting older people. Hair greys and thins, bones ache, and we slow down. It happens, and fussing about it won’t do a bit of good. I figure screw it, embrace it. Besides, I’m one of those young at heart people anyway, so I’ll never truly be the crusty old dude running the neighborhood kids off my lawn or anything.

Anyway, the email I got today that really set me to thinking about life, the way I live and view it, and what I want to do with the time I have left, was from a woman named Heather. She’s my age, and we’re similar in many ways. She was 36 when she had her daughter Lily, and 3 months later she found out she had mesothelioma. Now think on that for a second. Three months into what should be the most exciting and happiest time ever, the burgeoning moments in your baby’s brand new life, you find out you’ve got less than a 2% chance of seeing her start the first grade. Wow.

What I found incredible and deeply inspiring about Heather and her story is that she met the disease and the challenge head on and kicked its ass. When she might have balled up into a heap of depression and self-pity, she instead turned her already optimistic outlook on life into a weapon and used that weapon to fight and win against all odds. That’s something I have a deep and abiding respect for, no doubt about it. Five years along from her diagnosis she’s cancer free, and enjoying every minute she can with her daughter.

For me, it’s not really that Heather’s story is any different than millions of other cancer survivors we encounter every day. She fought the odds and she beat them. What makes her different, in my opinion at least, is that she beat the odds the right way, for the right reasons, and she’s determined not to waste the time she fought so hard to regain. We spend so much time worried about this or that trivial thing in our lives it’s easy for us as a collective and as individuals to lose sight of the little things, the important things, in our lives. We put our heads down and our noses to the grindstone and the next thing we know we look up and our kids are graduating high school and we wonder where the time went, and why it had to go so fast. Where’s the good in that? It just doesn’t seem right somehow.

So consider this, even if only for a moment. Look around you, at the people who mean the most, and just enjoy them. We aren’t given any allotted time frame on this Earth, and no one knows what tomorrow holds. So make the most of what you’ve got right now. Make it count, every single day.

For more info on Heather and her story, check out her blog.