As of today, I have been on this earth for 32,014.5 days. Because half of them were born in the middle of the first day. I know this because my father drops my mother off at Calgary General Hospital, where he works, in the morning before heading to the office. He checked on her in the maternity ward during his morning coffee break, met me during his lunch break, and went home after work to tell the others that his sister was born.
One day I realized that me and an old friend of mine had just been born at The General at the same time. We celebrated a joint birthday party for several years until I asked him where he was born, only to find out that he was actually in nursery school with me around that time, just a few days before I was. . We joked that maybe we were switched at birth and that I actually owned his beautiful big house. In the days that followed, many people grew tired of hearing the joke.
One day I accepted the fact that it was impossible to inflate a balloon without hurting my cheeks and stopped trying forever. As a child, I grabbed my father’s hand by mistake on my way out of church, and only realized my mistake when I saw the kind face of a stranger far away on the other side of my hand. I looked behind me for the right face and hands and family and returned there knowing with all my might where I belonged. It gave me a sense of strength and belonging that stayed with me for the rest of the day.
One day when I was shopping for yoga bras, I ran into a friend of mine who declared, “They looked better when they were on fire,” and we all laughed. I am grateful that I laughed freely on many days and cried just as hard on fewer days.
One day I walked on the Great Wall of China and thought I was standing at the edge of the earth. On another day, I did nothing except take a bathroom break, read a book, and ate sunflower seeds. The day I waved goodbye to my parents after they dropped me off to enroll in a two-year program at the University of Red Deer, I heard my mother say sadly to my father, . That girl,” I said before driving back to Calgary. What was I doing the day before? And what about the next day?
One day I met a pregnant teenager who would become my daughter’s biological mother. One day I let go of love and felt an emptiness that would never go away. One day I broke my tooth while eating a hot dog. And during that time, I spent many days doing big things and small things, and I turned 63 years old.
Days pass, and if you’re lucky, another day will come. My brother says that the days are long but the years are short. It’s the days of our lives, many of which are otherwise completely unnoticeable. Let’s have a nice day!
Visit Sandy’s website LifeInRetirement.ca.
