Where do the days go?

 

BUT WHAT DO YOU REALLY DO?

"What do you do?" We have all asked, or been asked, that question many times. It's seen as a safe conversational gambit with people new to you, and gives them something to talk about. There's also the risk that it's been used to judge who you are on the basis of your employment status, but that's a different discussion... The usual response is to tell the interlocutor your job, or what you study. Or, in my case, for over a decade now, the simple reply "I'm retired".

"What do you do with yourself?" Or "What do you do all day?" are the usual follow up questions.  (The smarter question might be "what did you do before?", but not many people think of that one.)  Because when you work it's hard to imagine life without that structure determining so much of how your days and weeks are occupied. How does all that time get filled up?

"What do I do with myself?" I think. And I'm never sure how to answer, either them or me. Our weeks have some fixed points in them, some days have places to go, things to do. others don't. Yet I can't say I've ever been bored. There's always something to do, to think about, books to read and messages to answer. I can see why that might sound dull to someone outside looking in, but that's not the experience I have.

One thing I have done for a long time, in fact with only a few short breaks since I was 19, is write up a daily diary entry. There's nothing earth shattering in there, just a run down of my day, and any thoughts that seemed important. Occasionally references to what's going on in the the wider world, mostly the mundane reality of the everyday. It helps me download my thoughts before bed, and provides a reference document of when things happened, what I thought about them at the time.

For the past decade and more these entries have finished with a short list, entitled '3 Things'. Every day I have to come up with three things that made me smile, made me laugh, provided some moment of happiness. Even on the occasional bad day, it makes me look for the good in the previous hours. Most days it's easy enough to nominate a trio. Some days it can be hard to get past two. On others the list goes on to four, five, six...

So to answer my own question - what do I do? - and maybe to explain my life a bit, I am going to follow this up with further posts, each one looking at one of the three days, and focusing on one of the 3 Things for that day. For all of September. A month of happy moments, or utter tedium? You