On the relentlessness of time, and other unoriginal thoughts

Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you about the procrastination.

Yes, it’s been about 6 months since made that first post.  What can I say it?  It wasn’t a great summer.  Nothing catastrophic, just a wee touch of existential crisis and dealing with a tear to my Achilles tendon that had me sporting a hideous ankle brace and stuck sitting on my ass.  

The irony of it all was that up to that point I’d spent my life trying to move as little as possible.  I’m thinker, dreamer, reader, writer, crocheter and a big fan of stillness.  But then I was told I COULDN’T move.  All of a sudden all I wanted to do was all of the things I’d spent 46 years avoiding. Go for all of the hikes!  Train for a 5k!  Frolic! Frolic! Frolic!  Despite this unprecedented burst of energy my reality was moping about for over 8 weeks with all my available energy directed towards the daunting tasks of hobbling to, from and around work and the excruciatingly slow process of ascending and descending staircases.  

Which brings us to now.  The stupid tendon still aches but is now mostly healed.  How the hell it got to be the end of December, I have no idea.  Christmas has come and gone, again, and life is relentlessly marching on.   I detest being busy and do my very best to contain the number of commitments I make beyond the basic ones required to remain employed and keep a somewhat decent home.  I’m an introvert and I need a lot of quiet alone time just to maintain my equilibrium. Every activity, no matter how pleasant, comes with an opportunity cost of giving up my precious time of nothingness. Somehow now life itself generates its own pressure with each season imploring that I make the most of every day, lest I miss out and forfeit my turn this time around. My grandfather warned me this day would come back when I was an impatient child for whom the wait until Christmas or any special occasion was unfathomably long.  “Don’t wish your life away, kid” he’d say.  “These are the best days of your life.”  

I turned 47 two weeks ago.  I’m not a vain sort who gets too wrapped up in the number itself, but how that happened, I cannot say.  One minute I was 25 and the very next I’m on the downhill slide to 50.  It just boggles my mind.  And it’s also a ridiculous cliché.  Yet, here I am just as confused about this turn of events as many who have gone before me.  

All of that to say 2018 was not the year of the blog, as I intended.  But here I am,  refocusing and steading myself to take on 2019.