Tag: summer vacation

I’d Love to Clock Father Time

Back in the day we had time, and that time was delivered by clocks.

There were clocks all around us.

The round one on the school room wall. The one on your mother’s old giant stove. The fun Kit Cat Klock with his tail marking the seconds.

The one on your alarm clock radio, the cuckoo and the clock in that cool new two-toned car your father just bought. And our watch.

One of my favorite clocks was always the one the white rabbit ran through wonderland carrying while screaming about being late. Perhaps our most effective reminder about how important it is to show up on time. At least it was for me. Let’s face it, why would a bunny rabbit be so agitated unless it really meant something? That’s how I saw things.

We had all kinds of reminders about time. Clocks, what time the Mickey Mouse Club started and why it was so important to rush home to watch American Bandstand. The fact time was an important factor in our lives wasn’t lost on us. Not dawdling while walking to school was planted in our brains.

Of course, when you’re young there is a different concept of time.

It seemed the school year simply crawled by at a snail’s pace. Summer vacation always looked eons away. Sadly, summer vacation seemed to move more quickly.  

At a certain age that all changes.

I’m not certain if awareness comes slowly. The realization that time is beginning to pick up speed. One day you wake up and say what the hell happened to the past year? I swear it was just here. I know I was actually living in it and then, poof it just vanished into thin air.

Or do we gradually just acclimate to the fact the days are shorter and the months are passing quicker than they once did?

Whichever it is, we are suddenly faced with the fact we are growing older at supersonic speed. When we look back at years gone by, it amazes us how fast we’ve come to this one.

Yes, for some reason we find ourselves talking a great deal to our friends and family about how fast it’s all going. How long ago the past seems to us.

Probably because we have so much more past to remember today.

Our brain becomes adjusted to remembering things that happened thirty years ago and much slower to remember last week. Could that be because what was now means so much more to us.

I’m not talking in terms of living in the past and not be aware of the now. Suddenly, all the things we did and were able to do before creep into our memories like photos on one of these movable picture frames.

Remembering those who’ve left seems more essential to keep them alive.

Yet we realize how important it is to embrace the present. To be in the now and not squander the time we have left.

So although we haven’t the energy or will to move through life as quickly as we once did, we find ourselves facing leisure guilt.

If we choose to stay at home and relax while watching a favorite movie, is that a waste of time? Shouldn’t we be out running around creating new memories at breakneck speed while we still have the time?

What exactly does embrace the now really mean? And should it be the same in our older years as it was in our youth. Yet isn’t everything a memory?

Of course it’s true there is much more that needs to be done when we’re young.

Our lives are filled with stuff to accomplish each day. School, work, raising children, meetings, chauffeuring the kids about, cooking, cleaning and falling into bed at night exhausted from the day’s activities.

Then suddenly we’re living in a time when we can pick and choose what and how to spend those hours.

It’s now our choice to golf, pickleball or meet a friend for lunch. Perhaps we should spend more time with our charity work or travel more?

We can fill the hours with the things we want, but we can also choose to simply relax and enjoy doing nothing.

Reading a book, knitting, watching YouTube, chatting with a friend on the phone about how crazy the world has become.

And most importantly spending time with our children and grandchildren.

So what makes the things we used to do more deserving of our time than what we do now?

Probably because the things we do now, except for the thousand doctor appointments a month, are of our choosing.

Not that working or raising a family wasn’t a choice, but it was what we did for the people we loved.
Now how we spend our moments are up to us and for us.

Sure, we still take time to do things for others, after all our children and grandchildren still often need us. But most of the time it’s up to us how we use our hours.

If anything, we are far more aware of the clock than ever. The ticking sound is always there in the back of our minds.

Despite the fact we now use an iphone or computer to tell time in lieu of a Kit Cat Klock, the seconds rush quickly by.

Just like as a kid when we wanted summer to last longer, today we want the years to slow down and stop flying so fast.

Neither then, nor now will what we want change anything.

Father Time is a bitch and no friend to anyone. Oh sure, they dress him up with a long white beard wearing an innocent looking outfit carrying his little scythe.

But he is the ultimate master of deception. The world’s greatest thief.

If I ever run into him I am definitely going to stick that scythe where the sun don’t shine.

Enjoy your day everyone.

Tripping The Light Not So Fantastic

I imagine we all remember how slowly time passed when we were young. It always seemed like summer vacation was a lifetime away.

I also remember how we all rushed through our lives. We couldn’t wait to turn sixteen so we could drive, or twenty-one so we could drink.

As we grew older we thought, wow, pretty soon I’ll get a senior discount.

How stupid do I feel? If I knew then what I know now, I’d say, screw the driver’s license I’m good just walking.

And to be excited about a senior discount? What the hell? Were the drugs we did in the sixties finally kicking in?

In our rush to speed through life and get to the next milestone faster than an LA blond chases a rich, old fool, we forgot one important thing…aging is a bitch!

We also were too foolish to realize that the road we hurried to travel was one way and return tickets don’t exist.

About getting older there is something upon which we can all agree…it sucks.

My life now is made up of doctor’s appointments, remortgaging the house to afford trips to the dentist, and an inability to live without an ice pack or heating pad attached somewhere to my body.

I travel frequently now. Only my trips aren’t to Europe, Asia or Bora Bora. They are trips over the rug, the curb, or the sidewalk that lifted up from a tree root. Hard to love trees after you kiss the pavement at twenty miles an hour.

I can even go to bed at night and wake up with a pain somewhere I didn’t possess the night before. It’s like the tooth fairy has been replaced by the pain fairy.

I find myself tripping and not in the way Timothy Leary proposed, but over any object that’s within two inches of my feet.

I swear sometimes I have seen a rug actually move closer to get under my foot and send me flying.

Someone should invent trip-free shoes or slippers that yell a warning when they see an object coming to get in our way. Now there’s a Nobel Prize I could sanction.

Speaking of trips, the bathroom is a place I frequent often at night without the need for a passport. Good luck getting back to sleep again. My bladder used to be the size of a lentil now it’s shrunken to a raisin.

Don’t for one minute think I’m alone in this clumsiness convention here. I’m always receiving calls from friends, and the minute I hear their voices I know immediately.

I start the conversation with, “Okay so where did you fall?”

If you think for one minute that after you heal there won’t be another adventure in pain awaiting you, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. If you can get across it these days.

Black ice, the enemy of the aging is the reason people move to Florida and Arizona. Even people who are old and senile are smart enough to know not to move to California for warmer weather. The danger of catching stupidity and insanity in this state can be fatal.

So, life has pretty much become, okay, on to the next thing. Or my favorite mantra, this too shall pass.

Of course, I haven’t even mentioned the really bad stuff that’s harder to fix than using ice packs or heating pads. There’s that to contend with as well.

So you’re probably thinking, “I know people who are old and live amazing and active lives.” That’s so rare Netflix does specials on them. Did you notice they all seem to live in clusters in a place that probably has no throw rugs, black ice or uplifted curbs.

I’m certain everyone over the age of sixty-five has a list of places they’ve fallen and every doctor or dentist they frequent is on speed dial on their phone.

My new favorite is going to lunch with friends. While we once used to actually peruse the menu for our favorite dishes, we now check for foods we are allowed to eat.

A typical friend’s lunch these days sounds like this…

“Oh I love their ravioli, but last time I ate it I was sick for a week.”

“I know, it gives me terrible heartburn. I’ll just have a salad.”

“I can’t eat salad, the ruffage gets to me.”

“They say you shouldn’t eat certain vegetables if you have acid reflux.”

“No green pepper please. I’ll be burping it for days.”

“I can’t live without my Tums. They literally save me.”

“Let’s order quickly cause if it gets too late I can’t eat a complete meal.”

“Waiter, can you please ask them to go easy on the garlic and make the marinara sauce with cream? Otherwise it’s too acidic.”

“I’ll just have half an order of the spaghetti please. If I eat too much, I can’t sleep all night and easy on the salt, I bloat.”

‘I was going to have a face lift but I decided to have my bladder lifted instead.”

“You’re smart to do that. Who can handle wearing those diapers?”

“Oh, and waiter, be careful not to trip over my cane, I’m still recovering from a fall.”

Lunch nowadays sounds more like a medical convention than a meal.

Then there’s the balance issue. I used to have such great balance that seals with balls on their nose envied me. Now I have to hold onto walls when I’m attempting to exercise.

Yet on a positive note, I do have friends who stay active especially the ones I call the pickleball posse. They seem to be able to do the things so many of us only dream of doing now.

Forget pickleball, I’m thrilled if I can just eat a pickle without heartburn.

Walking downstairs used to take a minute, but now it takes half the day. Instead of one foot after another, it’s one foot then put the other foot on the same step and then move on to the next one.

And heaven forbid there is no railing.

I have so many bars in my shower and tub now it looks like saloon row in Las Vegas after dark.

I guess if we weren’t all talking about our aches and pains we’d have to discuss the horrible things we now call reality. So maybe a fall or two is worth avoiding the bad trip that is the news today. Let’s face it, hanging in there is still the real goal.

I guess being a klutz is a good thing after all. It does prove we’re still here and kicking. Well maybe not kicking…