Monthly Guest Post—Andrew Q. Gordon—Rumination On Another Summer's Ending.

I hate the summer heat. Truly hate it. Almost enough to say I hate summer. I tend to stay inside, gain weigh and loathe going outside. Typically on the hottest days, ‘lil q wants to go to the playground. Sigh. It’s hard to say no, especially when I realize how short the time is she’ll want to do this with me. This year the summer in DC has been particularly hot – like ‘hottest summer on record by a lot’ hot. So you know what that means, stayed inside more than usual by a lot, gained more weigh than usual by a lot – Sigh.

Lately it’s been hard to get motivated to do things. I’m one of those people who needs to be busy to get anything done. Give me a slew of projects that need to be done, and I hunker down and get ‘em done. If I’m not busy, I waste more time than I have to spare until I turn my surplus into a crunch. Oddly enough, I don’t like deadlines. I don’t like to be swamped, yet I get so little done without feeling pressured I should learn to embrace it. This doesn’t bode well for retirement.

Speaking of retiring, recently I realized that I have less than 180 months until I reach full retirement age. I ought to be doing cartwheels that I can measure my absolute last work day in so small a number. That’s a ‘light at the end of a tunnel’ number. Yet when I ride this thread to its logical end, I realize that’s how few months are left until I’m that old. Suddenly my cartwheels have turned into pushing a walker across the floor.

It doesn’t help that ‘lil q started kindergarten this month, or that her pediatrician retired this summer, or our dentist is retiring before the end of the year. Remember when you started with a doctor or dentist and they seemed so youngish. You figured you’d never leave them or they you. Yet they are.

Time has a way of creeping up on you until you’re at the point where you look back and think of all the hours you wasted playing solitaire on the computer, watching cat videos on Facebook, or waiting in line for a latte you won’t even finish. You want those hours back to relive them and do something productive – like finish the two truckloads of things left to do on your bucket list.

And though you absolutely know it as you sit in traffic on the way to the mall to return a pair of shoes you spent an afternoon trying to find and they didn’t match your suit, you’re powerless to stop yourself. Instead of getting up and doing something, you spend time thinking about the number of months to go until you can retire and have absolutely nothing to do. Then you’ll do less than nothing and try to find the motivation to get up and do something.

Or maybe that’s just me. 🙂

Andrew Q. Gordon wrote his first story back when yellow legal pads, ball point pens were common and a Smith Corona correctable typewriter was considered high tech. Adapting with technology, he now takes his MacBook somewhere quiet when he wants to write.

He currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his partner of twenty-one years, their young daughter and three dogs. In addition to dodging some very self-important D.C. ‘insiders’, Andrew uses his commute to catch up on his reading. When not working or writing, he enjoys soccer, high fantasy, baseball and seeing how much coffee he can drink in a day.

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Follow Andrew:

On his website: www.andrewqgordon.com,

On Facebook: www.facebook.com/andrewqugordon,

On Twitter: @andrewqgordon,

Or just email him: andrewqgordon@gmail.com

Books:

From Wayward Ink Publishing:

A Closed Door

From DSP Publications:

The Last Grand Master: (Champion of the Gods – Book 1)

The Eye and the Arm: (Champion of the Gods – Book 2)