I lost a highschool friend last night. Sadly, I found out by looking on Facebook at 2am as I just couldn’t sleep. I reached for my phone to see what time it was and my phone was still on Facebook from when I last looked at it prior to going to sleep, and there…..Right there in front of me was a post stating my friend, who asked me to have coffee with her on Saturday, had passed away in her sleep. I was shocked. In a blink of an eye, that friend who asked to have coffee with me was gone. I was busy moving and painting our home to get it ready to sell, and I opt to “wait” and not have coffee with her.

I couldn’t even stay at work as I kept beating myself up wondering what would have happened had I had coffee with her. I would have had a better memory of our last meeting without guilt. Should I have guilt? I try to say no, and as a counselor and Master life coach, I know it’s easier said than done to tell someone to focus on the amazing memories we had. Bette and I had one misunderstanding in the last nine years and that was because she was smoking by my jeep and it upset me. If I thought about it more I would have understood she was nervous to go into her interview, she was leaving her boyfriend, and she was worried about being evicted from her apartment. Dammit, I should have let it go. Why do I focus on that one disagreement?

Why does our mind go to the things that went wrong instead of all the happy memories…..because we feel guilty about it. But, I can pretty much garentee that Bette didn’t think twice about my not wanting her to smoke by the jeep after it happened, nor did I. Silly little disagreements that stick in our head when the person we disagreed with passes.

My point to this post tonight is, as always, stop and think before we get upset with someone. Put ourselves in their situation. My girlfriend smoking a cigurette next to the jeep was not the end of the world and now I feel so bad for getting upset with her over it…I can’t apologize to her now because she is gone, but I know she understands and would hit me saying, “Alexis, whatever.” Stop with the instant reactions that we all tend to do. Love one another and believe in one another. In a blink, life can change.

Trust the Journey,

Alexis