I was messaging a friend throughout this week regarding the death of her boyfriend’s best friend from cancer earlier this week. This friend had been battling cancer for quite some time, and he finally passed away this past Sunday morning. It’s always sad and difficult when someone you are close to and love passes away, especially when there were so many years of shared love between you. It’s even harder when that person dies, and you can’t even be there at the end of their life, and even at their funeral for a last goodbye.

He wasn’t too far away. He and his wife lived in St. Louis. The plane ride to get there wouldn’t take too long, but the more we talked, I realized the main reason they couldn’t go was that it’d be too expensive to fly there at a moment’s notice for them. I felt really terrible when she said this, realizing that money was the main reason they couldn’t be there to say a final goodbye and to help comfort their late friend’s wife. This is when earning more than enough money just “to get by” really matters, I thought. This is when money itself actually matters. Money gives you the freedom to make choices like this in cases of emergencies and things out of your control. And they don’t have this freedom because of the jobs they’ve chosen.

We all make our own choices, right? And I guess we have to live by them, for better or worse, and when we aren’t happy with the choices we’ve made, we have to change them. When I look back at the time when Ed passed away, I would have ended my own life before I wouldn’t have been there that terrible week… to be there for my parents, to say farewell to the brother I loved so much for over 27.5 years of my life. It wouldn’t have mattered if it cost $800 or $8,000 to be there; I had to be there no matter what. But I chose a job and a profession that allowed me that ability. And not everyone has that. But if I were in that situation where I had to go into debt to be there, I’d probably reexamine my life and how I live it and make sure that if this ever happened again, I wouldn’t have to get to that point of not having that freedom.

Yesterday, my friend and I were chatting on instant message, and he told me he had two tickets he had to give up because of a date that had to get rescheduled. He had planned for them to go see Drunk Shakespeare, so he asked me if I was interested in taking the tickets.

“Drunk Shakespeare?” I said to him. “That sounds like it’s going to be funny. You know I can’t laugh right now. It hurts my ribs too much. And Chris hates Shakespeare, so he definitely wouldn’t go anyway.”

“You still can’t laugh?” my friend responded, confused. “How long are you going to go without laughing?”

That was the saddest conversation. I told him that post antibiotics when I was spending a lot of time with Chris’s cousins, we laughed so much that I’m sure it only exacerbated my rib pain. The idea of being in any situation where I have to laugh too much or talk too much is a road to more rib pain.

This afternoon, I received an email from my extremely organized wedding catering manager, reminding me that our wedding tasting request form is due late next week in anticipation of our scheduled tasting coming up. Her e-mail also included a long list of things that I need to get to her by a few other target deadline dates, including a final head count and a full timeline of our day. While I very much admire and appreciate her organization, I felt knots in my stomach going through her email. It’s like the word “stress” was written all over that e-mail without her even trying.

As I looked over her list and looked at my own list that I have shared with Chris on Evernote, I could feel my heart racing, thinking, we really have to do all this by ourselves? Really? This is why people elope and have secret weddings at City Hall and don’t plan weddings with other people; it takes so much time, effort, money, and stress, and likely a few arguments with people you are working with, including your fiance and friends, along the way. I keep reminding myself that all of this will be worth it once the wedding week comes up. Everything just takes time, and I need to take this all day by day, line item by line item, and everything will be great.

My goal was to make it to the gym at least twice this week. Now, it’s looking like it will be zero times because my ribs are really not ready to be exposed to stretching and deep breathing that an aerobic workout would necessitate. I’m getting sad looking at the calendar, thinking that I may not even be able to go next week. When will this bruising stop and the pain go away? Who knew that whooping cough could leave such dire bodily effects on you?

There’s partly vanity involved in wanting to go to the gym, but the other part about it is that I always feel fresher, more alert, and focused when I work out in the morning versus when I do not. It’s always a struggle to get out of bed, especially when it’s as cold as it is here in January, but when I get out of the apartment and hop on the train, I know all that effort was worth it. It helps that I also have gym acquaintances, including a trainer who is trying to get me to do pull ups and lifts, who keep me in check; a few of them make fun of me when they don’t see me for a while, telling me I am slacking off or getting lazy (sometimes, this has some truth; other times, it’s because I am traveling for work or pleasure, which I don’t always tell them about ahead of time). As the wedding date approaches, of course, I’m also thinking about that, too. Chris and I need to work off all the calories we ate in Australia and in Hong Kong as delicious as they were, and now we have FitBits to keep us accountable (and competitive).