Each year I think the same thing as the clock chimes midnight into Jan. 1: “It will be the snap of a finger, the blink of an eye before we do this again.”
And then I make a handful of resolutions without much focus, without a ton of planning, and then aimlessly make my way through the next 12 months, divided into seasons. Here in Oklahoma, that means:
First cold and hella windy: January through early March.
First warm-up: March through early April, followed by “second cold” and everybody’s favorite parlor game, “When should I start mowing the yard?” or “When should I start planting?”
Each year about this time I start to plot how many 5Ks I might run; no, make it 10Ks! This year I have the advantage of a gimpy hip making that decision for me.
Baseball season starts in April, and so does my wondering if this might be the year the Texas Rangers finally win the World Series. Spoiler alert: for the first time in my life, last year, that daydream had a happy ending.
Summer starts and the pool opens, and we wonder aloud how many times we’ll dip in the neighborhood cool-off spot only to look through our window at the dozens of people already there. No, thanks.
We’ll take our vacation, always a highlight, and then have various nights out at drive-in movies, fireworks shows, and minor league baseball games — although a trip to see the Savannah Bananas is a highlight.
For me, Canadian Football starts in June, and it means more than anything else, football. This is good.
The appetite starts to hanker for football of the college variety and then NFL preseason games and even fantasy football drafts. Weekends go from an open canvas to scheduled by the kickoff.
Fall means the return of school and school activities, and that means performances during the week and on the weekend. Not that it doesn’t also happen in the summer.
The approach of autumn also brings on our second-favorite parlor game, “When’s gonna be the last mow of the season?” The past couple of years it’s been the week of OU-Texas, or ‘second week of October’ for the uninitiated.
The holidays start to approach, and we make our Thanksgiving Week plans. Put up the tree, hang the lights and make that visit to Chickasha as we do each year.
Buy gifts, go to holiday parties both corporate and familial. Dinner with relatives. Relatives coming to town. Packages galore arriving at the house. Gifts to be bought. Gifts to be given, and gifts to be received.
The next thing you know, it’s time for Andy and Anderson, a few beers and a charcuterie board, as we welcome in the new year with the biggest of plans and resolutions.
Realizing that yet again, it all went by too fast.
Image by benzoix on Freepik
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