Working on a plan or will with my husband, Raymond, ended up being the hardest goal to accomplish. I think that the idea was sound, wanting to give myself some peace of mind should anything happen to him that renders him unable to work, whether temporarily or permanently. However, the actual execution was difficult because it was also a topic I wanted to avoid. Sitting down to have this conversation was on my list because a part of me recognizes that some amount of planning can help ease concerns and anxiety about the future. The other part of me was so overwhelmed with the what-ifs and emotions that the conversation made me confront.
~Our home planner (for now) with the fresh cover & our last name erased. (July 20, 2026)~
I made a list of questions to ask Raymond but then lost said list. So, I made another. We discussed some of these details while the kids were away at camp. I have a binder that I used for our household planning in the past, so I got that out, replaced the cover to represent the 2026-2027 stretch, and printed out pages to record our expenses. Then, my cane fell over one morning, knocked into my full mug of faux-fee (chicory coffee), which then sent the hot beverage flying in multiple directions. The side of our loveseat got the brunt of it, but my household binder was leaning against the end table and got a decent splatter as well. I reprinted the cover, and started over with making pages to record our important household information in.
After discussing end-of-life decisions with Raymond, I realized that I don’t know the answers to some of the questions yet. I will have to think and pray on it. As far as any financial preparations, those will have to be revisited down the road a bit because my husband’s stretch of unemployment depleted our savings and altered our trajectory. Lord willing, our financial situation will be stabilized soon and we can begin again with saving for the future and for potential emergencies.
I also began the arduous task of compiling all of my login details and Raymond will be gathering his, so that we aren’t left in a lurch if the other is unable to communicate these details to the other (medically incapacitated, dead…). If you’ve been following along, then you probably have sensed a pattern in the last few remaining goals on my list. That pattern? They ended up being much bigger tasks than I anticipated, and/or they relied on other people to make them happen. This was both. I needed my husband to be on board, and I seriously underestimated how much thought and time it would require. In my defense, that is probably because of what I said before about it being a difficult topic to broach.
So, we have a plan to execute, the discussion is open, and we’ve begun compiling it all together. It’s not done, which would have been ideal, but we did make headway. I learned some of my husband’s wishes upon his eventual demise (which Lord willing will be long in the future), and he knows that it is a priority for me to get an action plan in order to ease my nerves. That’s good enough, honestly, because past Melissa made this goal without realizing the scope and without fully admitting to herself how decidedly not-fun the endeavor is. Besides, it would be really unfortunate to get this far, only to say I got 39/40 done, because I didn’t think I put in enough effort for ONE goal.
Phew!
Leave a Reply