I Don't Know Where to Start

The subject was “death”.  The panel was made up of a clergy member, a representative of a funeral home, and a nurse who prepares bodies for burial.  The attendees, about 12 of us, ranged in age from 40s to 80s.  We learned the ins and outs of what happens when someone dies in our community.  Most of the information I knew as I have already preplanned my funeral.  But there is always something to learn or relearn.  There were lots of personal stories shared and I mentioned my blog and passed out cards with the blog address.  As I was leaving, one of the participants came up to me and said she had always wanted to write about her history, her thoughts, etc. and she didn’t know where to start.

Those of us who want to do all things perfectly get stuck in the “never starting” because we may be afraid to fail.  Many people over 50 have boxes of photos in a corner.  Our intention is to label those pictures, and perhaps categorize them so that our family will know who’s who.  And how many of us really get that task started, let alone completed?  And again addressing my initial reason for starting this blog- getting important papers in order and putting them in one place- is another area where people are bogged down.  Many of us think about the problem and we never start addressing it.

My advice to this individual was to start now; don’t wait.  I suggested she go home and begin writing- writing about the meeting and the discussion- what her feelings were about the topic and what her  thoughts are about her spiritual, moral and ethical values.  Just start.  Computer keyboard or pen and paper. Either is fine.  Whatever is more comfortable and whatever makes sense to you is the right way of dealing with the situation.  Just Start.

I wrote down a quote from one of Ellen Goodman’s The Conversation Project newsletters:  “it’s always too soon to have these conversations before it’s too late.”  

Have you started a project that has been sitting for a long time?  What made you take the first step?  Did you complete it in bits and pieces or did you tackle it until it was resolved?  Let me know in the comments on the web version of this blog.