
61 Days
I remember hearing a standup comic once remark about his internal monologue upon receiving an invitation to his 20 year high school reunion: “Damn. I’ve only got a couple of months to lose forty pounds, find a fulfilling career, and make something of myself.” The audience, in response, laughed the laugh of recognition. At one time or another, I suspect every one of us have found ourselves not quite living up to the goals we had set for ourselves.
To be honest, November 1st, has often served as a sort of “day of reckoning” for me. Yes, I know that calendars are contrivances. No one day is more important than another. Every morning when we are graced to awaken is another chance to begin again. Sure thing.
Nevertheless, I often greet the final, fleeting days of any calendar year with a mixture of panic, disappointment, and regret. Plenty of chances to do better have been bypassed, moment by moment, until those moments have piled up into a mountain of things left undone. There are two months left in the year, and most of my own hopes for myself have been unrealized. Once again, my optimistic reach in January has exceeded my ability to grasp as one day morphed into the next.
In spite of the fact I haven’t lived up to my own expectations since returning from sabbatical at the beginning of July, what I will remember most from this year was the amazing 33 days I spent in Spain. There, I learned, in real time, as I walked the Camino de Santiago, how much a little bit of effort every day can lead to an amazing journey and a profound sense of accomplishment. And so, for the next two months, instead of giving up on these last few days of the year, and wallowing in my usual goop of self-recrimination, I’m going to gird up my loins, and actually make an effort to make a little progress on a few things. I plan to log those little efforts here. Not because they will be particularly interesting, or because anyone will benefit from reading my ramblings, but because committing to writing something (ANYTHING!) about the trip from now until the end of the year will give me a daily goal. I need to be able to look back at the end of each of these sixty-one days and say to myself, “Well, at least I completed something.”
One day’s worth of writing done. Sixty more to go.
