If Days are Measured in Minutes

Could Life Be Metered in Hours?

“Today you are YOU, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is YOU-ER than YOU!” —Dr. Seuss

This post is more reflective than others I’ve written. It occurred to me this morning as I had my first cup of caffeine, it’s going to be a Tylenol day.

Some days are like that when you get to be my age. You have creaky days and good days, great days and then Extra Strength Tylenol days from over-doing on the great day you had yesterday.

That’s okay though. That’s just the way it is. I’ve always looked at my days as being measured in minutes. It’s so important that I not waste any of them, because you never know, life might be metered in hours.

Have you ever noticed how many questions the young have for us old folks? They want to know what our one hardest age was; or do we wish we could live forever; or are we afraid of dying; or was old age what I thought it would be? 

I can answer that last question easily. Old age isn’t really what I thought it would be, no, but then I never really gave it much thought. The best way to describe it is to say age just sneaks up on you while you’re busy living life.

You wake up every morning to a new day, you cram everything you have to do into it, then wake up to another one in the morning. When you do that enough times, then suddenly, there’s another birthday cake in front of you …that’s how it happened with me.

Growing up, I knew there was a beginning and an end to life, because one by one, I was slowly losing my favorite grandparents to the end of life. But the state of old age was just something that happened to other people —my piano teacher, the neighbor on the corner with all the cats, my respected remaining grandparents and much later, my parents.

I also knew old age was coming for me someday, but I guess I always thought I’d get an advanced warning, like feeling old or something, but I didn’t. I’ve almost always had some sort of advanced warning before the biggest things in life hit me —just not this time.

Old age came whizzing around a corner one day and just like Soupy Sales getting a pie in the face, it blindsided me. I woke up that one morning trying to decide if it was a creaky, or a Tylenol day. I looked in the bathroom mirror, and there she was.  An older woman stared back at me. I didn’t even have time to wonder who she was, or where she came from.  When she grinned, I just knew.

Old age had arrived …

Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
Quora Top Writer 2018.
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