Fun with Spinsters!: The Balance Sheet of Life

Dear Friends,

Megan Mahoney

If life is a balance sheet, most of us have found ourselves, once or twice, in the red. A few checks are missing thanks to lost memories or misadventures. Our balance sheets may weigh heavily on one side (books, travel, and schooling for me) but light on the other (romantic adventure and free time), and failed ventures show as “VOID” (that PhD program and its rejection letter or the move to Canada that never came through). But, even though below the mark on many things, we have credits, too—family and friends, experience, sacred places, careers, mindsets. The balance sheets of our lives may look alright, but couldn’t they be better? I know mine could. Time to find a teacher, a life accountant with a sense of balance and a low tolerance for unbalanced books.

Meet Megan Mahoney—wise woman, runner, fundraiser, world traveler, and yes, spinster. Megan is a Michigander, works in the auto. industry, and loves her single life. And what’s not to love? She travels the world and rubs shoulders with her male colleagues who have no choice but to respect her expertise. When on U.S. soil, she trains for marathons, skis, golfs, and visits friends and family all over. When asked if she ever feels lonely, she laughs. As if she has the time. As if she doesn’t love coming home to her own place, neat or messy, as she pleases and when she pleases. Megan believes in the balance sheet of life. What are your credits? What are your debits? Do the people in your life (including prospective suitors) keep you in the red or put you in the black? If those people don’t create a positive life flow, Megan says “goodbye.” Keep the balance or life will unbalance you.

Part of that balance, for Megan, is caring for her family.

Megan and her Dad in Concert

A few years ago, Megan’s father passed away from acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), a blood and bone marrow cancer that rapidly attacks red blood cells. Fewer than 20% of diagnosed AML patients live beyond five years after the cancer is found. Sadly, Megan’s father was not one of those 20%. Diagnosed on Sunday, July 12, 2012, Megan’s dad passed away on Sunday, January 12, 2013, exactly twenty-six weeks after his diagnosis. Megan’s family has never been the same, but her father’s memory is far from lost. Since his passing, Megan has joined the Leukemia Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training, a running group that also fundraises to support Michigan LLS patients. Each year, she and her teammates corral their social networks, collect donations, and they hit the pavement in preparation for race day. The training and fundraising starts in the brutal, post-holiday, January cold and culminates in May with the team members’ chosen races. Megan’s race is the Bayshore Marathon in Traverse City, Michigan, where her family has a summer home along the race course. On race day, she runs one mile for every week her father lived post diagnosis—all 26 of them plus .2 for good measure.

Megan's Team

This year, Megan, go-getter that she is, set her team a high fundraising goal. Even though she already had been Bayshore’s top fundraiser for the last five years, Megan asked her team to raise even more. She set their goal at $40,000.00 with a deadline of late May 2017. That number was no mistake. Megan turned forty-years wise this year. From 2000-2014, 40% of cancer drugs have come from blood cancer research. In 2016, LLS announced that it made the first breakthrough treatment for AML in the last forty years. A few months later, LLS earmarked $40 million in research funds toward a cure. It was a sign too perfect to ignore. Megan rallied her team, and they dedicated themselves to raising $40k for LLS with the hashtag #AintFortyGrand.

Megan at Bayshore 2017

Forty is grand, but more can't hurt. Running her own life and the hard miles to prepare for her marathon, Megan pushed her team to meet the challenge she had set. And they did. They more than did. By the end of May, Megan’s team had raised $63,000.00. The team exceeded her goal by $23,000.00! Now that’s a positive life cash flow.

The balance sheet of Megan’s life may not be perfect—she wouldn’t claim it is—but she never settles for life in the red. She seeks the activities and people who are a credit to her. In Megan’s worldview, a negative report is not an end; it is a starting line to work for better. Helping LLS to end blood cancer is the finish line, and she is happy to be on LLS’s relay team. Although the miles and the dollars raised will never replace her dad, Megan doesn’t see her loss as a tragedy. Rather, it was the starting gun for her race for others, to end the disease and honor her father’s memory.

Megan at Bayshore 2017

When we audit our own life accounts, we should remember that we do not act alone. Everyone around us raises us up or brings us down. The same applies to our activities. Do they keep us in the red, or do they help us into the black? Megan reminds us that relationship status, age, loss, and hardship are surmountable obstacles. They do not define who we are. They just define our roads to happiness. Nigh unstoppable in her pursuits, Megan knows how to balance her life, counting her credits in LLS dollars raised, friendships made, and miles run. She is an inspiration and credit to everyone who knows her. Whether hitting the pavement or the ski slopes, her life is balances toward happiness, and that, more than anything else, would have made her father proud.

Yours truly,

The Super Spinster