Death, and Braving this One Wild and Precious Life

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2025 has already been one hell of a year. If I were currently enrolled in the School of Life, my courses would be called things like:

• ‘Navigating Big Grief’

• ‘Reinventing Yourself…Again 101’

• ‘How to Cut the BS and Get Unstuck’

• ‘Why Therapy is Important for Everyone’

My takeaway lessons from these courses so far would be that life is often confusing, and always unpredictable. None of us on this planet know for certain how many more sunsets we’re going to see, or dogs we’re going to pet, or races we’re going to run, or hugs we’re going to give, or ‘I love you’s’ we’re going to say…

• There are no guarantees in life.

• No ‘Best Before’ guidelines.

• No expiry dates.

The only certainty in life is death... and the fact that every single one of us is going to be gone someday. It’s a real #truthbomb that’s driven home hard when you lose somebody very close to you.

Losing my Dad earlier this year really has me thinking about the importance of NOW. Living NOW. Trying NOW. Being brave NOW. Because If not now, when?

I’m reminded of a very famous line in a poem by Mary Oliver:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

This is it, guys. We’ve got this one wild and f*cking precious life, and it’s up to us to figure out what we want to do with it. How big of a responsibility is that? …And how exhilarating?! Sure, our story (up until today, at least) has already been written, but the rest of the book is just empty pages waiting to be filled. We don’t know how many more chapters we’re going to get, but it sure as hell shouldn’t stop us from writing the SHIT out of the ones we have left.

I’ve got a milestone birthday right around the corner (the big 4-0!), and I do not take it for granted. I want to be more intentional about the way I live, act, and breathe as I enter this new decade, and show myself that I can be brave and ballsy in this next phase of my life.

A few years ago, I wrote a poem about doing just that. I’d like to share it again here below:

If I were brave
I would get bangs.
REAL bangs. Thick ones, like the ones I had when I was a kid.
The kind of bangs that wrap around half of your forehead.
Not the wispy ones that I could just pin back and pretend never happened….
If I were brave,
I would commit.

If I were brave,
I would finally get that tattoo I’ve been thinking about for 15 years.
Should I? Shouldn’t I?
Maybe I would love it.
Maybe I would regret it, but have a good story to tell my grandkids.
A story about the symbol that reminded me that I was strong,
Even when I didn’t feel like it.
If I were brave,
I would quit wavering.
As my mother would say,
‘Shit or get off the pot’.

If I were brave
I would finally learn to surf a shortboard.
Like, learn for REAL.
Commit, fail, commit, fail, commit…
CONQUER.
Not like a PROFESSIONAL conquering, though -
As the Germans say, I’m definitely ‘kein Profi’…..
…but if I were brave,
I would allow myself to finally try.

I’m not getting any younger.
But I could get a little braver.

It’s OK to make a bad decision.
It’s OK to wipeout.
It’s OK to fail.

As the expression goes in surfing,
I’ve been put through the washing machine.
And I’ve come up for air.
Every time.

When I’m old,
And looking back on my life,
I don’t want to be thinking,
“...if only I had been braver”.

As for my own personal evolution in the year ahead, I’ve got some special ideas on the front burner…and a few projects already in the works! I can’t wait to ‘graduate’ from my current School of Life courses, and figure out what to enroll in next.

So… what would YOUR course schedule look like in 2025?

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