THE YEAR AS AN EGG

 by Fran McNabb

If you look at a calendar for the year, you realize there’s a nice pattern and a calming sense of familiarity to the names of holidays spread throughout the year: New Year’s Day, Valentines, Easter, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

 The holidays can be expected on or near the same dates each year, and with that regularity, most people find a sense of stability. We know when to pull out our white shorts for the summer, when to start searching for Christmas gifts or school supplies, and when to think about cleaning the fine china for Thanksgiving dinner.

This is the end of August, the closing moments of the summer months and the beginning of school and football season. When I taught school, our lives revolved around the school’s calendar. As soon as it was given to me, I sat down with our family calendar and marked the days when school would be out. My husband would then book his time for vacation according to our days off.

For those of you who work jobs or own businesses, you have no idea what it feels like to be on a set schedule. I was lucky. My husband’s job and my job both marched along pretty regularly.

I am a visual person, someone who learns best and understands the world through visual

images. I saw my school year as the shape of an egg lying on its side. The small end was Christmas and New Years and the wide end was the summer months. Today, as a retired school teacher, I still visualize it that way, but now my life doesn’t revolve around the school calendar. In fact, this year school buses were rolling before I realized schools had opened their doors.

 Life goes on whether you’re involved in it or not. Hubby and I still think about plans for our year, but they’re not set in stone. We’re retired.  For the most part, we can do what we want when we want, but every once in a while, I stop and remember when life wasn’t like that.

I feel so blessed for our good health and energy to still do things we want to do, and my wish to all of you who are still working is that one day you can also enjoy your carefree days of retirement. My egg is still visible to me, but some days I have to remind myself that my life isn’t controlled by a school calendar anymore.

Hmmm, maybe I should try to see the year as a different shape. Nope. My year has been an egg for so long there’s no way that my old brain cells would see it any other way.

No matter – whatever you’re doing at the end of this summer, I hope it leads to a wonderful fall because that leads to winter and that leads spring – get the picture?

 

 

Fran McNabb writes light romances and has just finished the final round of edits for KEEPING HOPE ALIVE, a romantic suspense and her eighth published book. She lives along the Gulf Coast with her husband and spends her retirement years writing, painting, and boating. Visit her at www.FranMcNabb.com or contact her at mcnabbf@bellsouth.net.