Barrett died this week. He went to see his doctor because he just wasn't feeling himself, and his heart stopped on the examining table. They brought him back with a defibrillator in the ambulance.

He got a pacemaker and says he's eager for more life.

I'm 45 and barely know why I wake up every day.

I know these are not the days to measure our worth or gauge the meaning of our lives.

I am keeping my kids safe and sane and loved. I am keeping a house running. And a team at work. And helping with church.

But.

All the shoulds press so insistently, and the years of regret I am forecasting when I see how little I make of my days now. 

"Trust in the laws of accretion," Barrett said more than 20 years ago to me. And I have very little writing to show for it. Baudelaire may have called it better. I am a product of ennui. Barely dragging myself through the days and then anesthetizing myself once in bed with bad tv, a game or two, some news.

I read some. I love some. I exercise some.

I know I should do more. I feel so empty, so drained, so exhausted. Maybe I am doing all I can.

What is the most loving thing to do for myself? Forgive and let languish or push and produce?

I would love Barrett as much even if he never wrote a poem. I would adore Rini just as much if she never picked up a brush. And for years, she didn't. 

A career was plenty for many people. Why do I want a whole other life? Ah, there's the rub.