Monday, April 13, 2015

Days Gone By

Have you noticed as you age that dates, months and years seem to pass you by at an alarming rate?

Think back to when you were growing up.  I'll age myself and refer to the 70's and 80's.  I looked forward to every school year.  We spent summers with friends that lived in our neighborhood and  every August we couldn't wait to show up with a new backpack filled to the brim with our supplies.  You had a new teacher every year, and as you aged you had a new teacher every hour.  You interacted with about 30 people in each and every class and every day was an adventure.  

As we grow up, finish college and join the workforce, our collective interaction base gets smaller and smaller.  I've seen the number of friends the younger generation  (aging myself again) has on social media. My friendship base fluctuates around 300:  a handful of close friends, family, parents of my kids friends and those in friendly with through the kids sports, kids still in school, and quite a few high school friends and those I hadn't been friends with them, but am proud to say I am now.   Before they took it upon themselves and did a mass deletion, my kids friendship base was well over 500 for one and nearing 1,000 for the other.  They've since deleted those but who they feel are good friends.   My mother in law is on Facebook and she has just 19 friends.  My husband is down to 14, and that's because he only uses Facebook to check out a few pages.

Every week I head to work bright and early Monday morning and have a pretty good idea of what is waiting for me when I get there.  By Wednesday I'm dragging and by Friday I might as well just not work.  I'm mentally exhausted by then.  Friday nights lead into Satuday mornings and before you know it, you are starting over on Monday again.

I've noticed recently that my standard response to switching over a month on a calendar is saying 'I can't believe it's April' or 'July' or that 'Christmas is next week'.

I often measure time by activities coming up.  Just 112 days until football season starts, 253 days until snowmobiling, 424 days until my youngest son's high school graduation.  

I don't remember just going with the flow and not thinking about what's coming up next.

I miss lazy summer days, sledding until you felt Iike your legs would fall off and laughing until your parents yelled for you to come home.

We are a society of instant gratification and the need to know what's next.  We are tied to our phones and have the need to answer it every time it dings.  It's like we are all stuck in an experiment ala Pavlov's dogs.  Ding.  Answer a text.  Ring.  Answer the phone.  Whoop. Oooh a Facebook notification.

Maybe if we'd stop jumping when our phones make noise or our kids ask for that next best thing, or we commit to yet another activity, the days, months and years would slow down.



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