I dare not answer the question.

That was my first response when someone asked where I see myself in three years. Without hesitation, fear stepped in — not fear of failure, but fear of imagining life beyond now. Beyond her.

Yesterday, my wife finalized her cremation plans. I’ve done this before — for my sister, for my father. Each time, it became a necessary transaction. Paperwork, signatures, polite condolences exchanged over a table that felt too small for the weight in the room. The funeral director came to the house. We completed the forms. She paid for her services. Efficient. Respectful. Businesslike.

It’s best to do this before it happens, they say — so there’s one less thing to cause anxiety and pain.

But is that really true? Or is it that I just didn’t want to do this again?

Because the truth is, no matter how many times I’ve faced loss, I still don’t know how to prepare for it. I can manage logistics, but not emotions. I can sign the papers, but not the permission slip to move forward.

When I think about the future — traveling, my children, my new grandbaby — I feel guilty. There’s a horrible tension between the yearning to be free and the desperate wish for this stage of life to never end. How do you reconcile wanting relief and wanting permanence at the same time?

Maybe that’s what being human really is — living inside the contradiction.

We spend our lives trying to control time, plan for tomorrow, build systems, write goals. But life keeps reminding us it doesn’t belong to us. It moves with or without our consent.

Three years from now, I don’t know where I’ll be. Maybe I’ll be standing somewhere new, lighter but not the same. Maybe I’ll still wake up some mornings expecting to hear her voice. Maybe I’ll finally find a kind of peace in the not-knowing.

Because the truth is, none of us can control life. We can only honor it

Where will I be in 3 years…..