Time is of the essence

(This post was triggered by two events. First, one of you rightly observed that my blog was often quite factual, and that they were missing "my hilltop", i.e. insights into "my world".

This coincided with me reflecting on how the last post-but-one was before the events of the weekend, while the one I have just published was after...  Hum...  before... and after...)

Once, before all this happened, my sense of time was very comfortable. I don't mean "what time is it?" I mean "what is time, and how do I relate to it?"

The answer? Maybe the same as yours: with some degree of indifference.  When I did occasionally think consciously about it, it was without regret or fear. Put simply - Time past: I can honesty say "none wasted". Time present: "using it well". Time future: "there's enough".

Time past: when I think about what I have done these last 56 years, it is with a real, clear sense of accomplishment, whether it be in my professional or personal lives; "making a difference" as Diana would put it. As for "time present", living here in this wonderful house in a truly vibrant village community, contributing my few talents was more rewarding than I could ever have imagined.

Time future? Oh boy.

Then, it was a vague sense of  "there's enough" (did you know there are roughly 10,000 nights in 30 years? That's the gap between me and Dad! Plenty of time yet!).

But now...

It's complicated.  10,000 nights is a distant impossible dream, even 100 sometimes feels beyond me. Let's split the (logarithmic!) difference and go for 1,000! Impossible? Not probable but a valid target none-the-less, even if it is so clearly finite.  And that fact is sometimes so tough to grasp, particularly when the treatment lays me low and another day goes by.

But whatever the number is, and it's hard not to have it in mind most of the time, the only way of "being" I know is to continue trying to make that difference, whatever the chemo and lesions throw at me and whatever that difference may be.

Put another way: while it's so tough to do,  I still go back to the beginning of this blog 12 months ago - "normal is good". Or as Captain Mainwaring would have said: "carry on!" Here's to all our futures!