I'm trying to keep everything relatively lowkey at the moment and focus on the precious little things that bring good.
One such thing is spending time with the dog and enjoying what he enjoys. He loves shooting around the garden, and I like to watch him and spur him on. I'm often so caught up in my head from day to day that I take things like this - or taking him for a walk - for granted. I'm trying not to though, as these moments are what life is all about.
Spending time with the wife is another example (though the second-billing was accidental). We've had a lot to process lately, and while this stuff doesn't just vanish, I think we've earnt some time away from it. Recent events have underlined how you can spend a lifetime trapped in someone else's timeline to almost miss out on your own. But approaching forty is a good time to make a conscious effort to live a little differently: to attempt to look to the present and the future instead of always looking back.
It might sound like horrendous therapising, but it's a question of who get the central roles in the film of your life, and whether you've unwittingly become a bit-part in it. Mortality isn't just for those who shout the loudest; it applies to us all. And, however easily swayed I am from this mindset, having spent a sizeable chunk of my life tied to recovering from the impact of other people's choices, I'd now like to focus on my wife's and my life story. If we don't write it, no-one else will.
Chapter one's called 'Jump the Shark'.