How Many Somedays Do We Get

(Playing in the background Moodswings– Chryssie Hynde)

Quite a bit of my childhood was filled with being told by my parents that I would be able to do that someday. I don’t have to close my eyes to hear it, all I have to do is think about it.

“Dad, when I am going to be able to drive?”
“Mom, when can I make my own bedtime?”
“Mom, when will I be old enough to eat ice cream for dinner?”

“Someday.” Someday was always part of the answer. Sometimes someday was accompanied by more specific directions such as being told that I’d be able to drive at 16. That was followed up by “and someday you’ll have your own car.”

Nice parenting trick that I use on my own children. Couch specifics alongside a nonspecific answer.

But this post is about more than my childhood. In fact it really is more about the current moment in time and the issues that I am dealing with now. Most are no different than millions of other people. Most of them are nothing more than the normal challenges we all go through with the sole difference being that they are mine.

(Playing in the background Just Another Day- Oingo Boingo)

They are mine. They are mine and that makes all the difference. I can be sympathetic to the problems of others. I can always say that someone’s life is harder than mine, but that only works so well. I am not living their life, I am living mine.

And because I am living mine I have to look at what I am doing and figure out if I am pleased with where I am going. I don’t come up with posts like Do You Live Your Dreams? for the purpose of generating comments. Sure, I want them, but this is still a blog in which I try to figure out what it all means.

When I was twenty it was easy to look into the future and see a million somedays coming down the pike. Now it is a bit harder. Now I stand this much closer to turning 40 and I find myself struggling with it. Intellectually I see it as just another birthday. The mental image I carry around of myself is that 20 year-old kid. The guy who wore a flat top and had six pack abs.

(Playing in the background Just The Two of Us – Bill Withers)

The truth is that I am probably happier than that guy was, but then again I know so much more now. Now I have seen more than one friend die and watched as a number of my parent’s friends have also succumbed to early deaths. Happy talk, I know. But the guy who lives in the Shack has a dark side that hangs out with the happy-go-lucky dude. And somewhere the two turn into what I like to think is a realist with a strong touch of dreamer.

That brings it all back to the initial question of how many somedays do we get and what do we do to maximize those somedays. Not to mention is what do we owe our families in respect to our own happiness.

(Playing in the background Summerwind– Frank Sinatra)

Sinatra is appropriate for this moment, if for no other reason than it makes me feel like there all sorts of possibilities. Maybe that is just because that is what summer is to me, a season of potential. But I digress.

I have been focusing on my dreams because I feel time slipping away. Even though I truly believe that I’ll live for another 90 years I still think to myself, what if. What if I don’t. What happens if I die tomorrow. What happens if I get hit by a bus, develop a terminal disease or are marooned on a desert island. (Guess who is not going on a three hour cruise.)

And so I find myself wrestling with a number of issues. Here I sit staring at the monitor wondering what to type, how honest to be. In spite of what some people think. I really don’t live in denial. I have a very clear idea of who I am. I know my strengths and weaknesses. But even knowing these things it can be hard to read them. Even knowing them, it is not easy to see the shortcomings listed in print.

Who wants to read all that crap about themselves anyway.

Which brings me to the place where I get lost in thought about all this nonsense. Here is what I know and what I am willing to share with you. I have a lot of things to be thankful. My life is pretty damn good, but it is not what I want it to be. There are a few key areas that I need to focus upon, a few key areas that require my personal attention.

I have written in the past about the things that I fear and I have decided that I have a few things to add. For now I’ll keep the specifics to myself, but Bobbo, I will say this much. I have a serious fear of finding myself looking back on my life with regrets. Not ordinary regret, but that caused by being stationary.

When the time comes I want to say that I did my best to make the most out of my somedays. I want to say that I may not have always succeeded, but I tried. Damn it, if I can’t say that I tried well then I really did fail.

So until I am granted the ability to know how many somedays we get I suppose I’ll have to keep trying to make the most out of each one.