school is out

I wrote a few weeks ago about the amazing relationship with time I have had as a widower. It is some of my best stuff, to tell the truth. I should leave it perpetually on top of this thing, or maybe like the third one down, so that people would see it and think I am this insightful dude instead of this schmuck who plays poker and frets about the Spurs and Royals - don't even get me started on the Royals. ..... I got started, and just deleted that bit. Arrrggggghhhhh.

Anyway, today was Katie's last day of kindergarden. She is now, I guess, a first grader. I had to claim her report card from the office because I was $3.08 delinquint in paying for her lunches, and so they held it hostage. I gave them $3.10 and told them to keep the change, because I am a magnanimous guy even if I can't spell the word. I tried all of the vowels where that "i" is, and none of them look right, so deal with it.

Katie had a perfect report card except for she had a "developing skills" mark under expresses her feelings. She had the best mark on that until the end. I talked to her teacher about it while she was walking the kids out, and she said Katie had been acting out more a few weeks ago. No kidding, I thought. She had a rough go of it the couple of weeks leading up to Mothers' Day. And since then she has been fine. Which got me wondering whether she hadn't been expressing her feelings better than the average kindergardener. Ah well.

But it is amazing how quickly this year has gone by. 2003 through 2005 took about thirty years between cancer and being widowed. And now it seems to have picked up to a pace like "normal." Which sounds like it should be good, right? Isn't that a sign of healing. And yet I wonder. One of the reasons that the time moved so slowly was that everyday was packed with meaning. In so many ways the time Becky had cancer was the best time of our relationship. We were never closer than we were during that time.

And so the question I sit here thinking about in when I join in with the crowd that says, "How can it be Memorial Weekend? The year just started ...." is whether this sped up time is also a sign that I have forgotten to make everyday meaningful. I just don't know. I need to recommit to many things in the summertime. I need to commit to more time at the gym. I need to recommit to spending the time with Katie she deserves. With the new job, I need to be more careful to balance these things. It will be easy to pour myself into that job because I do believe in it and want to succeed here. But not if it means the lessons of the last three and a half years have to be put to the side. How do I incorporate those lessons into the new normal?

Time is a puzzle.