It's Always Thursday. April 30th 2024

   Golden years?  Don't think so Tim.  Freedom comes with a price, you know.  And as often as not the price you pay for the freedom you worked for and planned for the bulk of you career comes with the health problems associated with the progression of aches and pains.  With parts of the body wearing down and the growing need for medications.  The aggravation of waiting lists for replacements of knees, hips,  and so on.   The realization that your children's adult problems are more stressful than their childhood problems.   (Cause even though they are quite capable of handling them, they are still your children.)

  Okay, I'll admit retirement has some definite advantages.  Like not working.....forty to fifty five hours a week.  Like having the time to do things you never dreamed of, like shovelling snow when it falls and is still soft rather than on your day off after you backed over it a hundred times.  Like golfing when it is easy to get a tee time, or going to your favourite resorts during the week when they aren't packed and hotel prices are almost affordable.   

   Then there is the comfort of routine.  (This coming from the disorganized mess that some adore and others find cringe worthy.)  And while I so enjoy that certain aura that goes with being spontaneous, I also like the feeling of knowing you do certain things at certain times.   When we started walking in preparation for the Camino,  I soon found myself going the same 11.5 km. route from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. five times a week.  I  usually mow the lawn the same days every week around 9:00 a.m.   I used to love Stuart McLean and the Vinyl Cafe Saturday mornings.   

    In the olden days,  we paid most things by cheque.  Groceries, gas, bills, and when you were working your daily paperwork it was always dated.  These days you pay by electronic banking.  You fill out forms online.  Even things like television and On Demand programming means you don't need to wait till a certain day of the week to follow your favourite stories.   The days run together and worse yet, run by at lightning speed.  It becomes almost impossible to remember exactly how long ago some things occurred.   Like Covid.  When was that exactly?   Or how long ago was it Tom Brady won a Super Bowl?  How could my 10 year passport be set to expire already?   

    When the date isn't in your face all the time,  you need some sort of measurement..... a touchstone if you are feeling a little more prosie.   You need something in a routine that tells you where you are on the calendar.  You certainly can't use the weather.  Not in this corner of my home and native land.  So what, pray tell helps you measure where you are?   We use Sunday's and Thursdays.  Sunday is the only actual programming we watch in real time.   PBS runs our favourite British stories on Sunday evenings.  We follow our familiar family patterns that date back to Sundays growing up and eating of t.v. trays while watching Disney's Wonderful World.  

   But our largest measuring stick?  Thursday.  Garbage day.  Gotta get that trash to the curb or you will be in trouble by Monday.    And although we know Thursday can only come once a week,  it seems to be much much more often.   It seems the one constant in this old world is that the garbage needs to be on the curb on Thursday mornings and that Thursday mornings arrive so swiftly it is almost a shock to the system.  

   I can see it in the eyes of those who share our lives.  That look that tells us without meaning to that we are moving much more slowly than we used to.  Then expected.  Then convenient.   But in our minds,  it is the clock and the calendar that are moving far too quickly.   It makes it hard to measure just where it are.  In this house?  Well you might say "It's always Thursday."