Our flight home for the holidays is on the morning of December 21. And I am so excited to go back to Maine. I can't wait to see my family, my friends, snow, beer ... and celebrate for the first time with my Wife (not just some measly girlfriend anymore).
But I'm not going to count down the days until we leave.
I don't do that anymore.
Well, it goes back about eighteen and a half years, actually. The weeks leading up to my twelfth birthday. I was so excited to turn twelve, I have no idea why. I guess because it was one year away from being a teenager? I don't know. Who really understands the mind of a sixth grader?
I had this countdown going to my birthday. I started on March 1st, counting down the thirty days. Each day I'd be obsessed with the number of days left, I rememember filling up page after page of "30" and the next day "29" and the like.
Again, dorky sixth grader.
I actually began the routine in fourth grade. Counting down to my tenth birthday, now, that was a big one. Double digits. Yep, I remember sitting in the library at Crooked River Elementary School with Crazy Holly drawing a calendar and figuring out how many days it was until my birthday.
And since I'm a creature of habit, I repeated the task in fifth grade, and then carried on into sixth.
Sixth grade was a little different, though. That month my paternal grandfather was in the hospital with lung cancer. Now, I don't know if my parents hadn't stressed to me how bad his condition was, or if they did if I would even understand. At that point all four of my grandparents were still alive - I might not have even grasped the concept of death.
But that March my Papa passed away.
I was so ashamed. Here I was obsessing over the passing of the month, while my grandfather lay there dying. I was wishing the days away - and those were his final ones. That was so selfish of me. Nothing, nothing is so important to wish time away.
And that was the last time that I had a full-on running countdown to an event.
As exciting as the future may be, let's not wish it away. Life's too short as it is.
