Living Before Never Shows Up

When the phone rings now, my brain goes somewhere else.

I don’t even look at the screen at first. Everything just tightens. Is it about her? Did something change? Do we need to be home?

That sound didn’t used to mean much. Now it carries weight.

You may have noticed we haven’t been writing as much lately. Not because nothing is happening, but because a lot is. This season has been consuming in ways that don’t always leave space for reflection in real time.

We still have plenty of exciting things in the pipeline, and travel hasn’t disappeared from our lives. It’s just taken a bit of a back seat for now, as responsibility has quietly moved into the front seat.

Last year, we were traveling to Greenville, South Carolina for a short trip. An annual art festival. A city we were excited to explore. Nothing ambitious. But even before we left, I remember feeling uneasy about being too far away, like part of me never fully settled into vacation mode.

Mark’s mom had already been dealing with some mobility issues and heart concerns. She was living in independent senior housing, and we knew she was in and out of doctors’ offices more than we liked. Still, life went on. We went anyway.

At 2:00 in the morning, Mark’s phone rang.

It was the doctor calling from the hospital. She had been admitted earlier, and they were concerned about her heart rhythm. She’d been having plenty of AFib issues. They mentioned the possibility of shocking her heart if things didn’t stabilize.

That’s a lot to absorb in the middle of the night.

We were instantly wide awake, sitting there, talking through what to do even though we already knew. We were scheduled to fly home later that day, but there was no chance we were staying. We packed, headed to the airport, and caught the earliest flight we could.

She was okay. Thankfully. But something shifted anyway.

Coming home early changes the tone of everything, especially when travel is such a big part of who you are. It’s stressful. It’s emotional. And if I’m honest, there’s guilt wrapped up in it too. Because frustration shows up, even when no one did anything wrong.

That trip was when it became clear that our priorities had changed. Not temporarily. Not hypothetically. What we wanted no longer came first. Being present, reachable, and ready to advocate did.

I started thinking about friends who had gone through this before us. Trips cut short. Plans canceled. Lives quietly rearranged around aging parents and fragile health. I finally understood what they meant when they said everything feels different.

And then there’s the word that lingers once you start seeing this up close.

Never.

Never walk again.
Never travel again.
Never cook for yourself again.

I’m not afraid of dying as much as I’m afraid of losing ability while still being alive. Of watching someone’s world shrink, not because they want it to, but because their body won’t cooperate anymore. Of realizing how much of identity is tied to mobility until it’s threatened.

Just recently, we heard a line in a show that stopped us both.

There are more summers behind you than in front of you.

We looked at each other like, that’s ridiculous. And then immediately thought, wait… is it?

I’m not old. But I’m not unaware anymore either. And especially as a woman, that awareness can arrive with a strange pressure. You start noticing time reflected back at you. In your body. In expectations. In the quiet realization that you don’t have unlimited “later.”

Mark’s mom is in a better place now. Medically, things are more stable. But caretaking doesn’t just end when the crisis passes. We’re still in it. More than a year later, it’s still part of our daily mental load. The phone can still ring. Plans still need flexibility. That responsibility doesn’t disappear.

So we’ve adapted, for now.

We’re looking for adventures closer to home. Ways to feel alive without being too far away. Stress relief that doesn’t require a boarding pass.

That’s how flying trapeze came into our lives.

It had been on our ridiculous whiteboard list for a long time. We booked one class thinking it would be a fun experiment. Now we’re hooked. We go every other week. It’s playful and a little scary and forces you to trust your body completely. You climb. You jump. You let go.

It reminds me that I can still do things now.

This season has made me think a lot about longevity. About mobility. About taking care of my body not out of fear, but out of respect. Because I’ve seen what “never” looks like up close, and I don’t want to wait until something is taken away to start paying attention.

There’s a spoken word song by Baz Luhrmann that’s been with me since high school. I didn’t fully understand it back then, but I do now.

Enjoy your body.

Use it everywhere you can.
Don’t be afraid of it or what other people think of it.
It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

That feels truer now than it ever did at seventeen.

Responsibility has changed the way we live. It’s changed how far we go, how quickly we leave, and how often we listen for the phone to ring. But it’s also sharpened our awareness of what matters while we’re still able to choose.

Move your body.
Use it.
Trust it.
Challenge it while it still lets you.

Don’t keep postponing the things you say you’ll do someday.

Later isn’t promised.
Now is here.

Live before never shows up.

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