“Happiness, not in another place but this place…not for another hour, but this hour.”
― Walt Whitman

It was the morning of February 28, 2015. I was getting ready to go to the gym. Then I got a phone call from my co-worker, Jessica.

“Karen had a heart attack last night. Sarah. She didn’t make it. She didn’t make it…”

Karen (in the yellow sweater in the picture) worked with us at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. She spent 28 years of her life there. I saw her just the day before. We had celebrated her birthday just the week before.

Karen loved our team so, so much. And we loved her. But Karen was always stressed and seemed to always have something challenging her in work or her personal life. I worried about her because I felt like she had all this anxiety that made her unhappy.

I calmed down for Jessica so we could understand each other as we made plans to meet and figure out how to tell the rest of the team. I hung up the phone. My knees went weak. My right arm dropped, my hand went limp, and my phone fell to the floor. My body followed shortly after, and I sobbed. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Everything went through my head. ‘I just saw her. We just laughed together. We just had coffee together.’

‘Wait. Was she happy?’

The sobbing immediately stopped. I inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled. Then it came out of my mouth.

“Wait. Am I happy?”

I’ve been watching this new show on NBC called “This is Us.” Great show. I highly recommend it. In one of the episodes, the daughter is on a plane to New York to visit the rest of her family for Thanksgiving. The plane hits a lot of turbulence- the kind of turbulence that immediately leads all the passengers to believe that this may not end well. It suddenly stops, and the daughter, Kate, realizes that the woman next to her had held her hand the entire time. They take a minute, and then the woman says, “I thought I was going to die.” Kate nods. And then the woman continues. “My husband is cheating on me. And I continue to take it. I’m getting a divorce. Life’s too short to settle for that nonsense.”

So. What is wrong with us? Do we really need death to make us realize that maybe we should do something about our unhappiness? Do we need the threat of possibly not having one more day to launch us into what might be best for us? I knew I hadn’t been happy for a long time, but it took my friend unexpectedly dying to make me realize that yeah, maybe we don’t have much time. And maybe we do. But that’s unknown. So maybe we should start living the life we want for ourselves. Right. Now.

Even writing about her right at this moment, tears are streaming down my face. It was so unexpected and so hard. But wow. Karen. She gave me such a gift. She reminded me that if tomorrow is my last day, I better make damn sure that I’m going out knowing I lived my life to my fullest. And I’m not the best version of me unless I’m happy with myself. And on February 28, 2015, I realized, it’s time to change.