Don't Worry, Nothing Is Going to Happen to You

You get one life. Live it.

Hey you, it's me.

Twice yesterday I heard the same sentence, from two different people who love me. Don't worry. Nothing is going to happen to you.

I've been sitting with it since. And I don't think either of them was talking to me. I think they were talking to themselves. Saying it out loud so they could set it down and stop carrying it around all day. That isn't a fault. That's love doing what it can with what it has.

I hope they're right. I just don't build my days on it anymore.

I want to live today fully enough that, if I wake up tomorrow, I don't have to wish I had said what mattered.

Two years ago, I would have heard that sentence and agreed with it without blinking. Then I hiked Havasu Falls.

A man died on the way out. Not on a summit. Not doing anything anyone would call dangerous. Walking back toward his car on an ordinary day, the same way I was.

Days before that I had come down from Angels Landing in Zion. I was on the bus back to the parking lot when I heard people a few rows ahead talking about a man and a woman who had fallen the week before.

Both times I had just been there. Both times it was a regular day with a car waiting at the end.

I never thought about what if when setting out on an adventure. Not until then.

My dad passed away younger than he should have. He went with a lot of regrets and a lot of what ifs, wishing he could go back and do it differently.

So here is what I actually learned, and it isn't about dying.

It's about what the possibility does to the words you're still sitting on.

Once you know the window can close without warning, you stop walking out of rooms with words still sitting inside you. You stop saving it for a better moment. There is no better moment. There's this one.

I know now what it means to leave words unspoken. And to know you might never get the chance to say them.

If you've been waiting for permission to live like today is the only one you're promised, here it is. But I don't mean it the way it's usually meant. I'm not telling you to go be reckless. I'm telling you not to wake up with regrets. Not to lie down at night wondering what if. You get one life. Live it.

Jesus said not to worry about tomorrow, because today has enough of its own. I used to read that as a verse about anxiety. Now I read it as a verse about attention. Tomorrow was never mine. Today is. So today is where I'm putting everything I have.

Make the call. Say the thing. Apologize first. Tell them you're proud of them while they can still hear it.

Not because something is going to happen.

Because you don't get to know.

Sometimes Silent to Spoken is simply saying it now.

I'm waiting on your note~

What is the thing you have been sitting on? You do not have to send it to me. Just say it somewhere. Even out loud in an empty room counts.

Write Me Back ↓

Don't quit in the quiet.

Stay sweet out there.

I love you,

~ Jenn

P.S. Silent to Spoken: A Woman's Journey Through the Pause comes out October 6. It's a whole book about the cost of the words we don't say. Sign up to be notified when pre-orders open: silenttospoken.com

If you are looking for a midlife companion, let me walk with you.
lavishlifeliving.com

The deeper we dive, the sweeter it gets.

What Are You Still Sitting On?

The thing you keep meaning to say. Send it to me if you want. Nobody else sees this.

← Back to Just Jelly Unfiltered