Sittin on the dock of the bay

All week long, I chug through my days with nothing in sight but the weekend. If I can just get through Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I can finally grasp the golden ring of the weekend. Then the weekend comes, and I don't get done what I want (which is usually to relax and forget about work), and suddenly it's Monday again.

I'm 44 years old, and I'm wishing my life away.

It's a good life. I have no idea why I'm not savoring the days, each day I spend with this child who's now taller than I am and whose voice dropped an octave in the last week or the husband who's enough younger that I'm certain to leave him behind when I leave this earth, so I might as well enjoy him now. I'm spinning my wheels madly to get through a series of days just to reach a shorter series of days that hold promise but don't always deliver results. Why am I so anxious to leave my weekdays behind me? What can I do to learn to cherish them and drag them out the way I do my weekends so my life stops whizzing by me so fast?

I'm John at the bar in the old Billy Joel song:

Now, John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he's quick with a joke and a light of your smoke
But there's some place that he'd rather be

That's me. Tolerating the customers of my weeks and constantly worrying that wherever I am, there's a better place out there to be.

I'd love to say I'm like John Lennon, happily watching the wheels go round and round, no longer riding on the merry-go-round, but the truth is, I'm on the merry-go-round and not likely to get off any time soon. Round and round I go, always with an eye to the landscape for the spot I'd like to land just as soon as the damn thing stops.

I know it's my own fault for selling my soul. If I'd remained true and been willing to starve for my art--or worse, let Fiona starve--I might feel more professionally fulfilled. Instead, I sold my soul. At least I sold it in the 80s when the market was high.