A year ago I was working.
Specifically, on this day a year ago, I was working from home.
Today, a year later, I am no longer working.
Retired now, I spend my days at home wondering how to spend my days.
It’s an interesting metaphor: to ‘spend’ days. It suggests that days are a currency.
If they are, then they’re a finite currency. We can’t ever be sure just how much is left, for how long our pocketful of days will last. It’s not like we can take the currency of days out and count them. We don’t get to say ‘oh, would you look at that. I have 18, 362 days left to spend.’ What might change if we did know? Anything?
Some people, of course, might actually do that. Potentially, those people who live by the maxim of not counting the days, but making the days count. They no doubt spend their days productively, creatively, socially, doing things that bring them/others joy, with the resolve of making the most of their remaining 18, 362 days.
I am not that person.
I start writing, and am almost immediately distracted by what I write. I cannot find a way back to the point I was wanting to make, and so write this (these words that are appearing on my screen right at this moment; these words you are currently reading) as a poor transition from the digression, as interesting as it is, back to my point.
I spend my days at home wondering how to spend my days.
Last year, on this day, it was different. I was working, trying to write a proposal that would meet the criteria and thus provide us with more work and thus more certainty over our working futures.
I can’t recall from this distance what that proposal was for and whether we were successful, but I do know that a year ago today I was working from home. And at 1:49pm the phone rang.
It seems harsh to say, but it’s no less true, that life goes on. The question of ‘how will I cope’ is answered simply by coping, whether that’s poorly or well or both. Decisions are made, work changes, new people come into your life, the children grow another foot taller … life goes on. Time is spent.
I wish I could say it’ll get easier after this first anniversary, but how would I know that?
I’ve spent way too long trying to find a profound conclusion, some piece of wisdom that makes sense of the past 365 days. But the truth is as messy as this post. Life goes on, not because we are brave or because we have a plan, but because the sun keeps rising and the days keep being spent in whatever ways we have enough energy for.
I actually don’t have a point. I just have time. And today, I’m spending it thinking of Trent and of those he left behind.
Musings from the cold 