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When you read the title of this newsletter, did you think it was referring to me and Pava?

Well it is. Sorta. They are in fact Pava's words. And in many ways, Forget About Your Life Plan could be summarized with this title.

But in this instance, Pava wrote them about a woman who is also no longer with us: Mrs. Dennis.

So who is Mrs. Dennis? I only have some idea. Pava penned a Medium post titled The Words I Never Said, to a Woman Who's Now Dead on October 21st, 2018 - a couple of days after Mrs. Dennis passed away after losing a long battle with cancer (or as the late, great Norm McDonald would call it, a draw. Miss that old chunk of coal.)
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First, I encourage everyone to read Pava's post on Medium for the rest of this post to make any sense.

I first read Pava’s post, The Words I Never Said, to a Woman Who’s Now Dead, a couple of weeks after she was now dead.

An EcoMap colleague posted the blog in our company’s newly-created #memories-of-pava Slack channel, which was populated with photos, memories, and classic Pav-isms (”Are there any questions, comments, concerns, and/or life grievances?” signaled the conclusion of every meeting).

Reading the Medium post felt like discovering an “old new” song by your favorite musical artist. You thought you had heard their entire discography, but an obscure self-published track lurked under the radar for years, only resurfacing because that artist would never create a new tune again. Despite the joy of discovery, there’s always the danger of that song not living up to the expectations you have of it. Maybe there was a reason that song persisted in obscurity.

This post was a certified Pava LaPere classic.

It fully displayed her emotional vulnerability, intellectualized empathy, and self-aware genius. Her writing was raw yet filtered. The piece contained the same unmistakable wit that permeated all of her writing, speeches, lectures, and casual conversations. And it concluded with a classic Pav-ism: the point is that there isn’t any. Or at least not the point that you thought was coming. A thing happened that matters, but just because it matters, it doesn’t mean anything will necessarily change. It’s up to us to make what happened matter.

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Pava and I had never talked about Mrs. Dennis before, but after a 9 minute Medium read, I felt like I could tell exactly the type of teacher she was and the impact she made on Pava. Some of us are lucky enough to have a Mrs. Dennis as a guiding light in the haze of high school. My Mrs. Dennis was Mrs. Flinn. I started to think about how I would react if such a formative figure in my life was diagnosed with cancer. Would I have the courage to knock on Mrs. Flinn’s door, to send that letter? And if I did, would I be able to convey anything of substance or would it be full of cliches and platitudes?

After finishing that Medium post, I felt a familiar sensation of being captivated by Pava.

Over the years, I’ve had a front row view to some of her most miraculous feats. As her serial partner in crime, I witnessed her be the driving force behind developing multiple programs from scratch that would go on to serve hundreds of student entrepreneurs and local small businesses. As her colleague, I observed her convince men twice her age that she was deserving of their trust and millions of dollars. And as her roommate, I watched her burn the midnight oil as she grew EcoMap from a dorm room student venture to one of Baltimore’s most renowned startup companies. In fact, I’m almost positive she crafted this post between the hours of 2 - 5 am during one of her regularly scheduled all-nighters as she juggled a dozen other “to-dos” which she no doubt got done.

So why share this now?

Forget About Your Life Plan actually begins with a "cold open", to borrow a term from SNL, in the form of Pava's Medium post.

If you read all of this - congrats! You just got your first sneak peak into the content from the book.

This week, I just officially started the 16 week revision process with my editor from Manuscripts. I'll be working hard at fine-tuning what I have and I'm excited to share bits and pieces of that process along the way.

Next up? I'll be releasing my first chapter in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. And send your letters.

Forever grateful,
Kevin (and Pava)