The Longest Day

 It's my birthday this week.  I had a dentist appointment recently that got cancelled.  2020 has been the longest day ever.

I say that because it really feels like yesterday that I was turning 36, and I don't mean that in an "Oh, time flies!" kind of way.  It literally feels like it happened yesterday. (Time does fly, though.  I accidentally wrote 26 there instead of my actual age and then felt wistful when I realized I was 10 years wrong).  My cancelled dentist appointment was a yearly follow-up which I recall was followed closely by a root canal, the pain from which had been necessitating that I consume several bottles of ibuprofen every week.  I only just realized that my back bottom right molar has been in its current state of endodontic repair for almost a year and not, as I had previously believed, just a few weeks. I have this terrible feeling that I blinked and I'm a year older.  While most years feel like a whirlwind or a rollercoaster, this time it just felt like warp speed.  Like we started in March 2020 and now it's November somehow.

At the same time, I feel like we've been doing this quarantine thing since forever.  

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Anyway, around my birthday, I try to set some goals.  

This past year I've been working on getting my (figurative) house in order. I've been prioritizing better sleep, meditation, yoga and exercise and I think its made the quarantine more manageable.  

With the hope of a vaccine coming sometime in the next 6 months, I think this is time to consider how I want to fill the time that's been vacant (or, more accurately, filled with extra work) all this time.  Normally, I feel like my life is a whirlwhind or a rollercoaster.  It's thrilling, but I when I get to the end of the year my brain feels pretty jiggled and my hair is in a crazy windswept beehive.  This year moved equally fast, but the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction as far as stimulation goes.  I think what I'm after is some kind of metaphorical rail journey.  There's no slowing the speed of time, but at least this way I get to enjoy the scenery without accidentally swallowing a bug.