XXI- Always one step out of time

Yep, I’m dropping the “when” title bit. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s getting unnecessarily difficult to keep up.

Summer keeps marching closer to autumn. I’ve never lived in a place where that mattered. It’s more than just the weather getting a little cooler (finally). It’s having to clean out the birdhouse for the winter. It’s having to consider how much longer I need to leave the hummingbird feeder up. It’s about needing to build one of those tupperware bin cat shelters before it gets properly cold. It’s thinking ahead to which plants need pruning now, which will need pruning in the spring, possible snow, what to feed the deer in the winter vs. summer, when to start making suet for the birds.

Florida is monotonous in a way that’s probably hard to visualize for anyone who hasn’t lived there. The trees don’t change. The animals don’t change. The heat changes only rarely. December feels the same as May, which feels the same as September.

Imagine trying to follow the Wiccan Wheel of the Year in a climate like that. It’s no wonder that flavor of paganism lost its appeal pretty quickly for me.

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I think I’ve always had a difficult relationship with time. It slips past in ways I don’t seem to feel like other people do.

Imagine, you wake up, and that indefinable feeling sinks into your bones. The day is here. Your birthday. Your wedding anniversary. Christmas. The concert. Whatever it is.

What’s that like?

Sincerely, what IS that like? Is that a feeling people actually get, or is it just something we expect because we see it so often in media? Is it something people want to feel, as opposed to actually feeling it, so they insert it into their books, movies, and TV shows?

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I never think about things on the right day.

I remember events…but I don’t associate them with the time they occured. Do I remember my first Hanson concert? Absolutely. Do I remember what month, or even what year it was? Nope.

I don’t feel my dad’s loss more in January (his birthday month), or in May. It comes and goes, disconnected from any external calendar.

I am terrible with birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. They sneak up on me, not because I don’t care…but because I blink and it happened three days ago. Any planning I do happens either much too early (like thinking about Chirstmas gift ideas in April), or too late and I’m scrambling to get things done.

Holidays also suffer from not feeling special to me by the time they actually roll around. I wake up on Halloween or Christmas and it’s just like another day. My brain has already moved on.

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Now imagine me trying to promote something like a book release.

Or doing any kind of marketing.

Or producting/posting content that aligns with anything relevant going on that people might connect to, which feels like the only way to get eyeballs on your stuff.

It doesn’t happen.

And I’m not sure if that’s something I need to work on, or something I need to embrace as part of the brand and work around.