Losing my mom changed more than my sense of loss. It changed my relationship with time and forced me to confront a question I’ve been avoiding for years: What if later never comes?
For a while now, I’ve been thinking about coming back to this blog, although “thinking about it” might be too generous. It’s been more like periodically opening the door in my mind, looking in, and then quietly closing it again because I wasn’t ready to deal with what came with it. Not because I stopped caring. That’s probably what surprises me most.
If anything, I’ve been writing more than I have in years. Work has pulled something back out of me that I forgot I enjoyed. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, shaping ideas, and trying to say things clearly. There’s a particular satisfaction that comes from creating something that finally says exactly what you meant.
Somewhere along the way, that led me back to MScapades.
I reread a few old posts expecting to feel embarrassed or disconnected from them. I assumed I would find unfinished thoughts, abandoned projects, or another reminder that I tend to start things with more enthusiasm than consistency. Instead, I liked them.
That realization sat with me longer than I expected because it forced me to ask a different question. Maybe the issue was never whether I had something worth saying. Maybe I’ve been waiting to become a version of myself that I believe follows through better.
That is an uncomfortable thought because after enough restarts, you begin creating stories about yourself. You stop looking at individual moments and start assigning labels. Inconsistent. Distracted. Someone with plenty of ideas but not enough execution.
The frustrating part is that I know those labels aren’t entirely true.
I follow through all the time. At work. For family. For responsibilities. For people who need me.
But the things that are just for me seem to operate under a different set of rules.
Those become things I’ll do when life settles down. When I have more energy. When I feel more inspired. When I finally have the time to do them properly.
The older I get, the more I realize how dangerous that line of thinking can be.
My mom passed away on Christmas Eve, and since then I’ve noticed that time feels different. I catch myself replaying ordinary moments and wishing I had one more overnight, one more visit, one more afternoon that didn’t seem particularly important at the time.
What surprises me is how quickly those thoughts turn into something else.
I start thinking about all the things I am still postponing.
The writing I’ll get around to later. The habits I’ll rebuild later. The faith I’ll reconnect with later. The creative projects I’ll finally pursue later. The healthier version of myself who somehow exists just beyond the horizon.
When I step back and look at it honestly, I can see how often I’ve treated life as though the real version of it begins sometime in the future. As though there is a version of me who eventually arrives with better routines, stronger discipline, clearer priorities, and more certainty.
She writes consistently. She exercises regularly. She follows through. She becomes the person I’ve always meant to be. I’ve spent a lot of years assuming she’s ahead of me somewhere.
Lately, I’ve started wondering if that’s the wrong way to look at it.
What if later never arrives? What if the future version of myself I’ve been waiting for isn’t coming?
Not because I’ve failed. Not because growth isn’t possible. But because life isn’t asking me to become someone else before I begin.
Maybe this is the version that writes. Maybe this is the version that starts. Maybe this is the version that learns to stop postponing what matters.
I don’t have a grand conclusion or a dramatic declaration that everything will be different from this point forward.
If the last year has taught me anything, it’s that life rarely unfolds according to the plans we make for it. What I do know is that losing my mom changed the way I think about time.
It made me realize how many ordinary moments become precious only after they’re gone. It also made me realize how easy it is to keep postponing parts of our lives while we wait for a future version of ourselves to arrive.
Maybe later isn’t the answer. Maybe later was never the point. Maybe the life I’ve been waiting to begin has been here all along.
