I had a moment yesterday where I thought I spent most of Tuesday thinking it was Wednesday, and now this morning I can’t really remember what I was thinking and when, except I know for sure on Tuesday evening, I did think it was Wednesday for a while, so it was a tiny bit confusing yesterday, Wednesday, and I had to call the person I was meeting for dinner to make sure I hadn’t scheduled it for Thursday. Maybe I’m losing my grip on reality. I have no idea how you check that. Seems unlikely, but the mind is a funny thing.

Of course, it’s also worth considering that maybe this is what happens when you live in the moment and the calendar, and the clock cease be the big drivers in your life. It’s a day and you’re alive and who cares what time it is. It literally matters not. You’ve got a trellis to build and you’re building it. There’s daylight and the weather is cool. And the trees are budding out, and there’s a bloom on the spiderwort, and somewhere in your mind it says knowing its daytime in the spring is good enough. The sun and the season are the only timekeepers you need.

I’m good with that approach. I think mostly we live life rushing around in the dark and in our youth we’re full of confidence and know we’ll never hit a wall and end it all, so we go full tilt all the time. Git’r done. Then gradually it dawns on us, as others crash and burn, that hey, there’s something out there, and it spells the end. Then we begin slowing down a bit and feeling our way around and saying things like look at that tree with its nice shade, maybe I’ll just sit here a bit and listen to the falling water. And we do because we actually understand that one day the wall will come to us. So, what’s the hurry.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale