Days go by

Today we’re officially halfway through the year. Six months have passed and there are six months to go. Over the last week many of us have been exclaiming how it seems unbelievable that half a year has already passed and “how can we be here already?”

We had the same conversation last year. And the year before. Each year it seems January starts and before I know it half a year has passed. Each individual day can feel long but the accumulation of weeks and months goes past in the blink of an eye. Perhaps the saying about time speeding up as you get older is true. Or perhaps you have fewer hard deadlines to look forward to. When we were in school it was always the end of a semester, winter break, spring break and then – ta da – SUMMER! As a working person it’s the end of the week most look forward to, and not the long-term year goals of school.

I made a vow that I wouldn’t say I hated Mondays, and I try to stick to that. I work in an office as my day job and it’s common for people to come in groaning about hating Monday and looking forward to the end of the week. Now it’s true that I wildly prefer Friday, especially in the summer when the office gets out early, but I also try not to hate Monday. I explain it this way – if I say I hate Monday I’m negating 1/7th of my entire existence. Instead I try to embrace Monday and be grateful that I have a good job in a good company to go to. Many are not so fortunate.

With that being said, I do look forward to the unstructured days of the weekend. Sleeping in (which for me means 7 or 8 o’clock) is a luxury. Not having to fit all my writing items into the morning hours does feel like someone handed me a golden ticket. It’s the little things. I have friends who have non-traditional jobs and I frequently hear “what day is it?” It is unfathomable to me, whose life is so structured around each 24 hours, but it happens.

And each day, like the day before it, passes and suddenly we find ourselves on July 1st wondering how half the year already went by. I am sure I will be having the same conversation at the end of December as we prepare to close the fiscal year and saying “where did the year go?” Then the whole cycle will start over again in January.

When I was a kid I couldn’t imagine what my future would look like. Now that I am here I can say that it isn’t what I expected, but it isn’t so bad. I wish I could tell that kid to embrace the moment, but you can’t change who you were, only who you are. Each day took me here, to this halfway mark, and then each day will take me toward the next marker. And the next. It’s all time passages as the old song said. These days I try to embrace each moment.

Claire Davon

Leave a Comment