WHAT DAY IS
IT?
I seem to
be lost in the What-the-heck-day-is-it? land of midwinter. Life is just a series of identical days
marching in some kind of a circular pattern passing an endless array of
familiar landmarks like we’re trapped inside Fred and Wilma Flintstone’s house
with no end in sight.
Why am I
here? What am I supposed to be
doing? Was I doing something
important? If so, where was I doing it?
I’ve often
joked about being solar powered, but even with the lengthening of sunlit hours
to our days my brain remains foggy and unfocussed. Facebook has studied my algorithms and has
suggested everything from vitamin supplements to possible parasite purges. I used to like 80% of what Facebook had to
offer and be annoyed with the other 20%.
Now it’s more like 5% to 95%, and ‘annoyed’ isn’t a strong enough word.
This
syndrome happens every winter, I think.
I’m not sure – it’s that fuzzy thinking thing again. I prefer outside work to inside housework so
my aimlessly wandering from window to window looking out at the frozen white
landscape in February is a form of slow-motion torture. I long for grass to mow and weeds to pull and
flowers to enjoy, but all there is out there is ice and snow and 40 below
temperatures.
I want to
do laundry and hang it out on the line.
At this
point I would even take an afternoon of cleaning up dog ‘residue’ over this endless
imprisonment.
One would
think that since we have a teenager living with us and going to school and
hockey there would be a bit more structure to our retirement time. It is true that we have more social
commitments because of this but I still seem to have trouble keeping my days
straight. Tuesdays and Thursdays are
hockey practice … except when changes are made.
School days should be pretty predictable … except for days the buses
don’t run because it’s 40 below, or there are admin days (I think that’s what
they are called). We’ve also had a fair
few sick days. And dentist days. And
storm days.
Actually,
any little thing can throw a person off: this year – 2026 – our church’s Shrove
Tuesday pancake supper landed on a Thursday.
It’s kinks like that in the time/space continuum that can really mess
things up.
If I didn’t
have everything written on my old-fashioned wall calendar we would be totally
lost.
I sincerely
hope I have everything written up on my old-fashioned wall calendar.
Probably
the worst component of this mind-numbing mundane-ness is having to come up with
a menu for supper. Every. Single.
Night.
I’m 70
years old, for Pete’s sake. When does
this ever end?
But, enough
crying already. As long as winter is,
I’m not the only one who has to endure it.
I can’t do anything about it being February 21st today but I
can turn my eyes toward the future.
Spring will surely arrive in all its muddy glory just like it has all
the other years. The sun will shine and
wrap me in a big, warm hug of welcome as I work in the yard, and hang out the
laundry, and clean up dog ‘residue’.
In the
shorter term I have a trip to Europe to look forward to … the tulips in
Holland, castles and vineyards along the Rhine.
This is a bucket list item for me in the plans have been in the works
for over a year. I just have to make it
through one more month …
