An odd time of year.
Snow and cold impose their limitations.
The holidays have come and gone.
A new calendar to ponder. Another
birthday.
Life has a strange pace these days. My ER work gets concentrated so that I will
have a week or two of furious work.
Followed by stretches of not much going on.
It is passing strange.
I typically work 12 hour shifts, with several day or night
shifts in succession. With day shifts
you are just a very busy, but still human, being. Work, commute, sleep, caffeinate,
repeat. With night shifts you become a
sort of shade or wraith. I am as
Nosferatu walking quietly in the darkling hours, my presence going unnoticed by
most. When the sun rises I retire to a
quiet curtained place and to a restless sleep, ever trying to repay a sleep
debt that gradually accumulates like compound interest.
And then I have a week or so with nothing more demanding
than routine domestic responsibilities.
Shovel snow when it arrives.
Clean the bathroom floors that have somehow become part of my household
duties.
I spend more time than is proper just lounging about in-to
call things by their proper name-pajamas.
I should have more time for reading, and to catch up on
movies and such. But when you have over
the years read as much as I have, it becomes more difficult to find books that
grab attention and hold it more than a hundred pages. And other than catching up on back episodes
of The Big Bang Theory I don’t find much worthwhile for video
entertainment. Even the few movies I had
looked forward to in the year past, Prometheus and The Hobbit, were less than
they should have been. It seems as if it
is no longer considered sufficient to make a good solid movie, you have to create a set up for sequels, theme park rides and video game adaptations.
In any event, I am feeling a bit pensive. Not because of the birthday, although they
will do that sometimes. I am simply
pondering what life should look like.
And I think of zeppelins.
Not because of the post holiday pounds, although they also will do that
sometimes.
It’s just that as our Duties and Responsibilities lessen it
feels as if the mooring lines holding us down are fewer. The kids are grown up and have become welcome
but intermittent presences. I have little love of "stuff" and so might have put enough
away for the future to afford a frugal life of lighter employ. Sure, you can always save more money. In fact my Teutonic mindset says you should
always should. But my
work has taught me that too much preparation can be a trap as dangerous as too
little.
You might work hard to age 70 and drop dead a month
later. You also might live to 110 and outlast any reasonable accumulation of nuts and acorns.
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