Does it Really Matter What Day it is?

I guess if it is your birthday or your wedding day, the first day of school, or a day of celebration for your big promotion, it might sort of matter what day it is.  Friday means the weekend is next and Sunday means the weekend is over.  Wednesday is “hump day” and Monday’s motivation is the hardest.  A week is 7 days, a month is somewhere between 28 and 31 days.  (I think there is a song taught in second grade that straightens out the number of days in a month.  I never learned it). A year is 365 days. 

My calendar is jam packed, as is yours, I’m sure.  It all seems so important.  Go go go…  Do do do…  Coffee here, client there.  Appointment here, commitment there.   All neatly scheduled according to the day of the week and the month of the year.

When Doug and I had young children at home, we knew the day summer break started and the day it ended.  We knew the days of spring break.  The President holidays were typically on Mondays and Valentines day shuffled the day of the week to which ever day employed February 14^th in that year.  Christmas made that same weekday shuffle for December 25^th.  Daylight savings time was always longed for and required a clock reset at 2:00am on a Sunday.  Who gets up at that time to change their clocks anyway?  Sundays were for church and Saturdays were for sleepovers.

What if you and I didn’t know what day it was?  What if we didn’t care?  How would not knowing change life?  How would we function?  What would the outcome look like?  Does it really matter what day it is? 

Not knowing which day we’re in is Doug’s constant companion.   This limited awareness has changed his life and, if I’m honest, it has also changed mine.  For the better.  Life is simpler with that common detail absent.  Because every day, instead of being Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday, is just right now.  One-day-at-a-time.

Doug gets confused by the calendar.  It dictates what he no longer lucidly follows.  Days, dates, times, months, past, future.  He relies on me, others, his Apple Watch,  lots and lots and lots of notes, giant X’s on our big calendar in the kitchen, his IPhone, and even the sun (for morning and evening cues) to get from here to there on the correct day of the week and the correct hour of that day.

Candidly,  Doug’s time clock has always been a bit sketchy.  Arriving on time, for example, to anything (especially before he met me) was frequently a crap shoot.  Doug always held the moment he was in with high regard.  Being engaged in a meaningful conversation, for example, took priority over making it to his next appointment on time, even if the conversation was with the grocery clerk.   

This used to drive me crazy.  If we were together and I knew we had a schedule to keep, I would get impatient.  I would shift my stance from left to right, roll my eyes in bothered exaggeration, and sigh loudly enough that he could hear.  On the way to the next item that earned ink on my calendar, I would tell him how late we were and that being late was “just not okay…”   I used to think I had all the answers and the calendar was king.  I don’t think that anymore.

Somewhere along the way, on our beautiful but challenging, zigzagging, up and down journey, I realized Doug’s many friends considered him their singular best friend.  He has friends all over the globe because he has always made time for them. 

I have finally wised up to what Doug has forever been keen to but is currently experiencing as a deficit of dementia.  Time is now.  The days of the week are inconsequential.  For Doug tomorrow and yesterday don’t register clearly.  Tomorrow never comes because when it gets here, it is today.    Time spent can’t be recaptured.  Time’s totality is in this present moment.

It’s releasing to live life that way.  Freeing to know the present intimately.  Humbling to admit it, and refreshing to be so unencumbered.   You ought to give it a try.

Doug and Karen