I won’t bore you with a restatement of the obvious calamity that has been the last 2 weeks. As much as I want to, an assumption of things returning to how they were on 3/1 at some point in the near future is not realistic. I’m not basing that on science or hope. I’m basing it on the fact that we don’t know and that I think that, unfortunately, things haven’t gotten to the bottom yet. When that happens, we can look up. 

Sounds doomy gloomy, but it’s not. It just is. It’s where I am for now. 

Our beagle, lulu, is plump. We assumed she was a big wad of lazy, because she sleeps 13 hours a day, but in the last 10 days or so we’ve walked her 20 miles. She’s slimming up. She looks forward to her nightly walks. She has more energy. Weird. Just like humans. 

For the first few times we took her walking, I’d usually bring my phone, you know, in case something happened. Newsflash. Nothing ever happens. I know this, but, habits. 

Last night I left my phone home, and as we were walking towards the sunset a thought crossed my mind. We were talking about a friend of my wife’s parents who are getting older. I think the mother is 79 and has Parkinson’s. As we were walking into the sunset I had a slow and vivid thought enter my mind. 

“You’re  almost 49. If you live until your 80, you have 30 years. What do you want them to look like?”

For the last 2-3 years I’ve been very un-goal motivated. I mean I’ve set arbitrary ones and met them, but this thought was so clear and calming to me, not so much as from the fact that I had an epiphany of what I wanted to do; but for the clear thought that I didn’t want it to feel like the last two years.

I may not change what I do, but how can I change how I do it?  

I, like you, don’t know what the next 2-3 months will be like. Could things smooth out and go back to some sense of what we remember?  Possibly. More than likely though, I’m not confident that it will. I think it will take six months, at the least, to even know. If my whole world can get upended in 14 days give or take, how can I expect to predict the next 180?

I can’t. 

I can take this time to count back from the end though. While I’d like to say I’ll live to be 100, that’s being aggressive (stretch goal maybe). I’ll start at 80 and move back. Anything beyond 80 will be considered bonus time. 30 years, 10,950 days, 262,800 hours give or take. 

How do I want them to look?

What’s worth spending those hours on?  What’s work worth doing and at what cost?  Who will I surround myself with? 

No answers. Just more questions and that’s okay. 

Thanks coronovirus. 

I needed to think this. 

#hugsanhi5s