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One week later.

Maybe I should have waited to post this until 28 days later. That would be clever, right? But I’ve already allowed the dragon to drag on longer than I should. My birthday was last Saturday. It’s time to shake off the rust and get back behind the wheel.

I’m not really sure what to say, though.

I’ve lost track of how many weeks I’ve been working from home. And, like so many other people I’ve spoken with in the last two months, I’m often unsure of exactly what day it is. I think today’s Saturday—but only because last Saturday was my birthday.

I’ve been planning on writing a little something-something for weeks, if not months, but I’ll be damned if I know what to say, ya know? Admittedly, walking out of the office back in early March, I wasn’t even remotely thinking about my birthday in late April.

Permanent vacation?

Leaving the office that day, knowing we were going to be working from home full-time, it still felt like going on vacation—which made working from home the following Monday feel a lot like logging into work while on vacation for a while. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

As much as I want to document that pandemic life for future reflection, I’ll spare you the pandemic stuff. After all, you’ve had the same conversations, I’m sure. Social distancing, mask or no mask, cabin fever, and TP shortages—in an election year? We are SO grounded.

Time Flies

Last year I asked for a watch to remind myself to make the most of every minute. Time is always running out. Even now, as we apparently have more time than ever before—and yet often find ourselves struggling to manage it well enough to feel like we’re not squandering this unprecedented opportunity to radically change our lives around what really, actually matters.

The problem with that is how much thought has to go into everything now. It’s amazing how much of our lives we took for granted before covid-19. Getting up early, dropping the kid at school, commuting, spending those nine hours at the office not having to think about keeping the kid occupied. How much of our lives pass us by while we’re on autopilot?

So as my birthday approached, I wasn’t sure what to do. For the last five years, my best friends would join us at the local teppanyaki joint for an expensive meal while I get elegantly wasted on sake bombers. We couldn’t do that this year. We couldn’t even get together in person.

V organized a Zoom meeting. It was still fun. And I’m sure we’ll get back out in the real world again one day, cashing in our collective rain checks for social proximity and being close to the ones we love.

You know, when I said I wanted to work on my garage, growth, and grit this year, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind—stuck in my garage, growing my hair out in strange new ways, and developing grit in the face of a global pandemic threat we can neither fight nor escape. I mean, jeez.

Happy Birthday to Me.

Like I said, last year I asked for—and received—a watch. This year, I asked for a nice pillow to lay my head on at night, suspension parts for my creaky Montero, and a radio controlled rock crawler.

I made out like a bandit. But you know what else I’m considering a birthday present?

This.

Life is what we make of it. Let’s build together.