There it is in all its predictable, resplendent glory. The calendar: a year in the life. It isn't much different from the one that preceded it nor the one that will follow. It indicates my birthday is on a Sunday this year. That must mean that it was on a Saturday last year; I really don't remember. It is better to have birthdays on a weekend... at least it used to be. The calendar used to matter. It used to mean something. Time was marked in understandable blocks. Beginning in late August freedom was sacrificed for structure. School. It was bitter sweet. The loss of the carefree summer giving way to friends and the excitement of new challenges. Then Christmas with a predictable break: at least ten days. Family and cookies and gifts and maybe a ski trip. And so on and....
Somewhere along the line it all comes crashing together. It merges into an amorphous 365 that is neither structured nor carefree. Each day passes as quickly and as anonymously as the last. 365 days or 525,600 minutes: what's the difference? Eventually the whir of days and the momentum of the ordinary overwhelms any sense of time and we are left to wonder where the years have gone.
It is in the summer when this phenomenon seems most acute. How I used to welcome the summer. Days spent gardening with Grandpa, riding bike, visits from distant cousins, vacations, evenings with Dairy Queen ice cream, fireworks, and fishing trips. This was the essence of life and we learned to pack it into a few precious months. Now summer seems to be the most hectic and least relaxing of seasons. Some have mentioned the dearth of blogs in the last couple of months. It seems almost too easy to chalk this up to "summer". Always busy and yet increasingly unfulfilling. Always hot but never special. Many years have passed since I ate fresh carrots and peas from Grandpa's garden... so many. I can't remember the last fish I caught. The occasional golf game seems a pour substitute; I'd trade them without reservation for one more summer with him.
And so it is: I've grown up. Responsibility and maturity trump the special and the enjoyable. Summer no longer has any unique properties. Christmas is only hectic and commercial. Each day is like the last and the next. The calendar becomes our enemy. I know I feel this the most this time of year when I start to realize how little I've actually accomplished on my list of summer goals. How little time I've spent in the sun and how much I've spent under flourescent bulbs. And as one more summer slips from our grasp I can't help but wonder: Is anyone else ready for fall? Football games and trick-or-treating? Maybe a chilly evening playing ghost-in-the-graveyard? We should probably make the most of it... before it snows.
