Living this life is like trying to put a shirt on an octopus. Unless you have a custom shirt specifically designed to be worn by a cephalopod, along with a very compliant eight legged beast, your chance of success, as you define it, are very slim indeed. The task ends in frustration, and the octopus is still naked.
Every morning, I set out to do a finite list of tasks. I have a routine. Upon rising before the sun, I drink an 8 ounce glass of water with my medicine, first thing. Then comes coffee, a devotional with a list of gratitudes and wishes, meditation and breathing, then journaling, followed by yoga. At the end of journaling I make a list of things to accomplish in the day with a star by the most critical thing, and a review of yesterday’s list to see how I did. Usually, most yesterday’s list just gets recycled to today.
I have always labored under the assumption that at the age I am (quickly approaching 61), things will get easier; the to-do list smaller and the concerns fewer. Nope, different yes; smaller no.
My main task this morning was to work on a book I am writing. I just heard the noon tornado test so the day is half over. So far, I have managed to get through my journaling, made carrot cake sourdough pancakes for breakfast, took all my medicine, texted a friend about wildflowers and starting vegetable seeds in the greenhouse, considered new infusion flavors for our honey, moved yesterday’s to-dos to today, and drank about 5 cups of coffee.
Charles came in to my office twice this morning. The first to show me the gaping wound on his head he got while out in his workshop, prompting me to get the saline solution and antibiotic ointment, the second to give me a morning report from the beehives. While it takes me several minutes to recover from any minor intrusion, Charles makes no to-do list and accomplishes more before lunch than I do the entire day. Plus, he shows no outward signs of worry, about anything. That really bugs me about Charles because it takes points off his perfection in my eyes.
While the to-do list is not getting any shorter, time is. Well, my time is anyway. Science tells us that as we get older we perceive time as going faster than we did as children because more of our lives is behind us. Thus, each our of our day is a larger percentage percentage of the time we have remaining. Whatever. Time feels to be passing by me like the scenery out a car window. It creates a little bit of panic for me. Will I have the chance to do all those things that I want to do before the buzzer on my life’s time clock rings?
After sitting down to write this blog, I searched far and wide for pictures of an octopus wearing a shirt for the cover, texted my granddaughter and a friend for help, and then just punted and put some text on an ocean view from one of my trips. It seems there are no pictures of a octopuses with shirts on – apparently, no one has ever accomplished it. Thus is life.
