Days, How They Pass

The days were always so long, it seemed that they would last forever. The time it took between birthdays or Christmas time an eternity. I guess it was because in our youth those were the times that I would look forward to most. (Patience was was something that had not been learned.) Vacation time may have been the reason, maybe it was for presents that I would be receiving but regardless of which it was, once those times came they would pass quickly and be over. They just weren't like the rest of the year which had been taken up with that dreaded daily grind called school.

How I hated those long days. Having to read and write, study and learn they offered me no fun no enjoyment. (I thought we were supposed to have fun as kids.) It felt like a place that I needed to escape from and graduating my senior year of high school that was exactly what I did. No more of that stuff for me!

No more school for this guy it causes long days and I hated being told what to do. Air Force, here I come. Well I thought that I had escaped. Guess I was still a little young and naive when it came to life in general. More waiting, more long days but now I would have to hurry up in order to wait for anything and everything.

After about 11 years of that, enough was enough and it was time to settle down to living a normal civilian life of working for a living. By this time I had finally realized that no matter what I was doing, time was going to drag on with long days. By this time birthdays and Christmas no longer offered the relief that they had in my youth. Living for the weekend offered hope, only to often be squashed by that last minute announcement that we would have to work on Saturday.

Retirement has come, the days are finally mine to do with as I please. Golf, making labels for friends and writing poetry fill a lot of the time. It really ain't too bad! Something else came along with this extra time I now had to spend as I saw fit. A time to think, a time for memories of my past to move to the forefront. My youth and school with the friends I had. My time in the service and my marriage. Bringing my sons into the world and watching them grow.

You know what's funny, we just celebrated 40 years of marriage and my older son turns 40 on his next birthday. Remember all those long days? It all just seems like yesterday.