The Countdown
by Cynthia M. Brown
I have been told several times by several people how many days until spring arrives. I have not been much of a countdown person in my life. Growing up, I loved school so I didn’t count the days to the weekend, holidays or summer break. I enjoyed summer and since I didn’t dread school, I didn’t reluctantly mark off the days until the first day of school as if marking off my final days of life before interment into prison. Don’t misunderstand me; I do make a great deal of the approach of a birthday, anniversary or a long-planned vacation. I mark them with great anticipation and celebrate them with much fanfare. Somehow, those kinds of countdowns seem festive and as if they enhance the enjoyment of the now. It just seems to me that we spend so much time waiting for the next thing, season or break to arrive that I often ask myself if we are so busy waiting for the future that we sacrifice the now. When my son was little, he used to complain a lot about all the rules he
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had to obey. Oh, he couldn’t wait to grow up so he could drive a car, not have a bed time, etc. He told me when he was grown he would be so free. I used to tell him he was wishing away his life and his childhood. I used to tell him he would never be as free as an adult as he was as a child. I told him he would have to earn a living, pay for his home, utilities, food… He would have a supervisor at work making a whole lot of rules about his time, dress, and behavior…. I begged him to enjoy his freedom and childhood and not spend so much time wishing it away. Of course, now, at 22, he is wishing for all that time and freedom. Now he says he understands what I was trying to tell him. I tell him now not to waste his life and this moment wishing for a “do over.” I tell him to find happiness in this time and to savor his youth, his health and all the possibilities before him. I remember when my mother turned forty. I remember saying to her, “God, mom, you are FORTY! Forty
Spring Preview 2021
