Anticipation

For those of us who remember Carly Simon with the clouds in her coffee and the spy who loved her, there is her most famous song about ketchup, Anticipation. (As Yosemite Sam says, “It’s a joke son.”) The commercial focuses on the head of the ketchup bottle as it flows painfully slow through the mouth. All the time, Carly is singing, anticipation is making me wait. Of course now you just squeeze the bottle for our instant gratification fix. It is amazing how marketing has had to change the focus of our lives from one of slow and enjoyable to fast and tolerable.

My children have been counting down the days until the end of the school year. Every night I hear, there are X number of days left. I remember counting down until the start of summer vacation. It was something that all of us looked forward to as youth. The days grew warmer and everyone started going outside. Baseball/softball started and the pool opened up on Memorial Day weekend (if the weather held up). It has not changed much over the last 30 years. On the flip side, there was always the dread at the end of summer. You knew it was over when your mom took you to go clothes shopping. But in June, August is a long way off and there is so much to do between now and then.

For adults, we are forced to live a mini-summer vacation every week. Our vacation starts as we leave work on Friday afternoon and ends when we go to sleep on Sunday night. Now we may get a vacation every year but these are usually planned and create more havoc that they do relaxation. I find it best to find a beach and sip cranberry and Absolute all afternoon while soaking up the sun. If you can accomplish that level of relaxation two or three days during your week of vacation, you have managed to recharge the batteries and live to fight another day. It is quite the change from the anticipation of youth to the expectations of an adult. The next step as an adult is transition to retirement. I have a few years before that happens but am still anticipating that. Please don’t ask me how many days. I can’t count that far ahead.

Icool

Cobb