Living: the ultimate team sport

Countdowns

Posted on November 29, 2021 Updated on November 28, 2021

Our need for countdowns is something we most likely don’t think about 24/7, but while we’re in the midst of one we are front and center and ready to move forward. 

Take the Holidays, for example. As soon as I turn over the calendar page to November, I’ve hit the ground running and once the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday has arrived, it’s just a matter of days before Christmas is upon us and then, voila! The end of the year and the start of a new one!

Whether counting down the days until the start of a planned vacation or our much anticipated retirement from work, we love crossing out the days that bring us closer to our goal. It’s sobering to realize, however, that the passage of time not only brings us to notable calendar events but it also ushers us into the inevitable aging that many of us have the privilege of experiencing.

And it is a privilege, isn’t it? We are all intimately acquainted with the fact that not everyone has spent as much time aging as we have: adult siblings and other loved ones die far too young, friends are victim of a disease or an accident that robs them of their lives, and most cruelly, children fall victim to similar diseases and accidents that rip them from the face of the earth, robbing them of the opportunity to grow up and move forward into productive and event-filled lives.

Most of us will not know in advance how long our lives will be, but as we age, we tend to feel the passage of time.

But it’s not all equal-knowing, is it? There are glorious days when I am shocked by the realization that I am sixty-eight years of age, followed by days when I can hardly believe I’m not far older than my years. But all in all, I celebrate that I am still here – even with the aches and pains and frustrations oftentimes inherent with aging. I am not counting down the days until I am no longer here – that’s a fruitless and unrealistic practice in which to be engaged – but I am celebrating that thus far I can most certainly count 25,016 days as my portion.