Two Hair Cuts until Christmas

As I scheduled my next hair cut last week, Nancy asked if I wanted to schedule the following one, too, "since my time will fill up fast before Christmas". A good idea I thought, so I did and then it occurred to me that what we were saying was that it's only two hair cuts until Christmas!

Where has this year gone? I know that time seems to move much faster when we are adults than when we were children, but does its pace continue to pick up forever, until we are just spinning thru the year? Does it eventually go so fast that we don't even notice what happens during the year? I hope not.

This past year has gone quickly - but I think for understandable reasons. The first and biggest is the new job, of course. Being the whale in the fish pond with jolly few fish, I have done a lot of things that would have been delegated to others when I worked in the larger pond (and was only a tuna). It's been fun to get to go out and be with the clients. I learned to take blood pressure and spent many days among the fire fighters in the spring. More recently I was part of a three-person team that bubbled in 78,461 little red circles on scan sheets for a three-week long medical screening marathon. Important to the final outcome, but soul numbing work. I was happy when those three weeks ended!

Then this weekend I attended an event guaranteed to bring home the fleeting nature of time: the college reunion. About two-thirds of my sorority sisters were there, representing the widest possible range of accomplishments and situations - two lawyers and the judge, the teacher, the real estate tycoon, the county administrator, the business owner, the business manager and five retirees. The well and the not-so-well; the slender and the not-so-slender; those who had only changed a little and those who had changed a lot - but none of that mattered.

From California, from Indiana, from New England and New Jersey, and from many places in Virginia we came to touch base with that which unites us. We ate together and then all trouped to the kitchen to help clean up and put away, just as we did together 40 years ago. We partied til the cows came home and danced to all our favorite music and then headed back to our homes and normal lives, but each enriched a bit by having spent time with those closest of friends who had known each other since we made that transition from girl to woman. It was a great reminder of how far we have come, but how much we are still the same ... as 40 years ago. It was a strong reminder that many days have passed and that there are fewer left to come.

I really don't want the rest of my life to be wished away filling in bubbles. I want to enjoy it. I want to savor the days. I want to find ways to look at the leaves as well as smelling the roses.... or more likely, the garden phlox.

I'm thinking some goals are in order:

1) Spend more time with Mitchell.
2) Spend more time on the porch - like eating lunch, or a late afternoon sip of something.
3) Stay in closer touch with friends.
4) Find a focus for this blog.

I still want to write, but am not sure that this daily memoir is what I want to do. Originally my thought was to comment on the world as I see it passing by "from my garden bench". That has not happened. Recently, it has become more of a diary, and less a commentary. I need help moving away from the confines of my life and toward the world outside of me. That may be why I haven't written anything in weeks. I'm bored with my own blog!

So, what I want for Christmas - which is only two haircuts away, after all - is a focus. Any ideas out there?