Friday?
Finnish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Methinks I might have taken that too much to heart.
Where has the week gone and what do I have to show for it? Remember when an hour was a day and a day was a week and a week was, well, a *longer week? How many things did I accomplish in those days. How many Tuesdays dragged on for several days before it was Wednesday. How long it was, every Monday, till the weekend.
The good news is the dread is gone, the week flows smoothly by. One hour at a time (maintaining the standard 60 min. length), one day remaining one day and each staying in their consecutive places. Month after month after boring month. What went wrong. When did I become so old that time never stops anymore?
When did I quit having fun. When did the days become a way of ticking off time on the vine? And why do I use that phrase when it makes me thing of the O. Henry story, The Last Leaf. What am I waiting for? Am I waiting? I don't have the impatient anxiety of someone waiting. There is no anticipation, there is no dread. Is this the feeling that brings about those midlife crises. Do midlifers do it just to make something happen. If this is it, man am I gonna have a short life span. This rumination is not tinged with depression, but with realization. I'm even so stoic that all I can emotionally muster for this discovery is a "Hmmm"
*I have lost all of my mellifluous writing.
posted by Perdita @ 11:36 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hey Perdita,
Thanks for the comments.
I know EXACTLY what you mean here!
When you said "There is no anticipation, there is no dread. Is this the feeling that brings about those midlife crises. Do midlifers do it just to make something happen." I think midlifers do it just to make something exciting in their life - I'm not a midlifer yet but I can feel the pains. I need something to look forward to once my kids are gone.
To answer your question. My dad had an afair - in all fairness my parents were split up at the time. At the time the girlfriend found out she was pregnant was the same time my parents got back together. So the girlfriend went to Florida to raise her son and my Dad never told my Mom. My Dad signed all of his rights away so the boy could be adopted when/if the boys mother ever got re-married - which never happened.
Sorry this is so long.
I did finally accomplish something on Friday which made my week seem more productive.
and as for the answer to my question...see her blog and read (I think it was) 3 is not a crowd
I always want to know more than people tell me.
Perdita: the bad news is you are having an existential crisis. The good news is you have to have a brain to have one. (And be alive.) Physically it is the gradual reduction of oestrogen, the feel good hormone which is leaving you feeling settled. Be thankful to put those up and down days behind you. Work hard. You now know how to pace yourself and the future years should be the most productive of your life. A new poet I have found:
SARABANDE
So you are angry and will not take my hand,
Nor laugh to me again with loving eyes;
But lift your charming head with hurt surprise,
Half scornful. Dear, you do not understand.
Down music haunted halls we bow and sway,
Moving to measured figures gravely planned;
Not knowing what wild air the minstrels play.
You hid your anger with disdainful face
Thinking 'twas I who gave the sidelong glance,
Tortured your soul upon a turn of chance.
Because a trod my measure out of place
You thought I unwittingly forwent your grace.
It was not I, dear heart. It was the dance.
Winifred Holtby (1898-1935)
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