Chris and I have spent the last day organizing our lives – our cabinets, our files, my clothes, our backup drives and digital photos. It’s been an exhausting process, but now, it’s finally done. Now, I can use some of that organizing for the scrapbook I will be putting together that will showcase our life together.

One thing of many that Chris and I share is that we are both very goal-driven. Just for 2014, we spent a weekend working on goals, and not just a list of five or ten, but goals by category (some examples are self-improvement, work, education, books to read, volunteering/charity, New York activities, travel priorities, photography). It’s crazy to revisit this list, which we will be doing at least once a month on our own and together, but it’s one way that we motivate each other to be better people and to be true to our words, and ultimately to ourselves.

Last night, I celebrated my birthday with Chris and five good friends at Banc in Murray Hill. A friend who came initially gave me a hard time about the place I chose, but I insisted that my only criteria were a) guaranteed table where everyone had a seat and b) reasonably priced drinks. Our group will create its own ambiance, and I didn’t need a super swanky place to have a good time.

It was a really fun night, and a night where I could actually say that everyone seemed to get along despite coming from different parts of my life, and it made me really happy to see it. All night, all I could think was how grateful I was to have these people in my life, after all these years and after all the drama that we’ve been through together. I’m happy that I can speak loudly, laugh hysterically, swear, hate on women (and men), and do whatever it is that I do, and still at the end of the day, be loved by all these people. I’m a really lucky person.

I think that most kids want to think one day, when they get married, buy their first (or second or third) home, have kids, and go through other various stages of their adult life that they hope and envision their parents will be there for them. They may be separated by distance, but the general dream I think we all have is that they will be alive and well and here to be happy and proud of us. This is how I’ve always imagined things happening and what I do genuinely want.

The scary thing, though, is that we can’t always control for everything that happens in life. So in the back of my own mind, I always feel a little scared every now and then that by the time I can do any of these things that it may be too late. And sadly, I’ve thought about it a lot more since Ed left us last summer. My dad and I were having a pretty frank discussion tonight about planning for the future, and I was trying to explain to him that I am grateful for his and my mom’s support throughout my childhood, for paying for my college education, for continuing to provide for me in different ways even since I started working, but I definitely do not want him skimping out on his own life and enjoyment now, thinking that he needs to provide for me when the day comes when he may no longer be here. “Well, Yvonne, remember, you can use that money towards a down payment on a house.” He reminded me how expensive it is to buy a house now in a major metropolitan area, and how much more expensive it is than when he was my age. DAD! I scolded him. “I’m not depending on your leaving this world for me to do that! And by the way, you’re not going anywhere. You are going to be here when I pay for my own down payment with my own money and buy a house, so don’t talk like that!”

I could immediately feel my eyes water a bit when I said this. My dad always feels like he has to provide for all of us forever until we die; he felt this way about Ed, too, without ever telling him. I told Ed, though. I could tell Ed felt some guilt when he heard this. I guess that’s just my dad’s masculine side coming out – his need to be a provider. He hasn’t always been the best with words, but in actions, that’s how he shows his love.