This winter has been a strange one for folks in Northern Minnesota. Very little snow and unseasonably warm weather. I have not done my usual winter activities, except for downhill skiing; which actually is a job requirement for me. No cross country skiing, no snowshoeing, very little snow shoveling and no sliding around in a car. I love watching snow as it drifts down from the sky.....not much of that this year. I am still holding out some hope for one good snow storm, but we only have a month and a half of winter left to bring some nasty winter weather.
Since the winter has been so tame, I have resorted to routines. I was never created to be a creature of habit. I seldom do the same routine in preparation for heading off to work. I'm not proud of the fact, as I admire people who have a systematic approach to life. I just don't have the necessary wiring to pull it off. I am easily side tracked and distracted. I also allow crazy ideas that continually flow through my brain to take hold of me. If I didn't have a job that allowed me to come in late, I would have been fired years ago. Now I am a man of routines.
Here is my typical weekday routine. Wake up, allow Olar our male cat to lay on my chest in bed. Pet Olar for five minutes. Have a conversation with our female cat Socks about the weather and what my day looks like; usually preparing her for the reality that I will not have time to allow her to go outside. Go to the bathroom to do bathroom stuff and brush my teeth, yes bush my teeth before breakfast. I do this because I will forget to do it later. Look at myself in the mirror.
Looking at myself in the mirror was some thing I never did in the past. I actually put on my reading glasses to do this; which means I really can see how I look. Now as I mentioned before, I am not a person who focuses on details. So my looking has nothing to do with hygiene; how my hair looks, whether I need to trim nose or ear hair or how my mustache is looking. I just see this old guy. I start staring into his eyes and ask him a few questions. He never looks directly back at me and he usually avoids answering the questions. His usual response is "I don't know" or "I will put some thought into that and get back to you". The mirror looking is the end of my predictable morning routine as I then revert back to my random methods of relating to the world.
I wish I'd never looked in the mirror. I am sure I would be a better man if I had avoided this fateful mistakes, but I did it. I have always be a proponent of the saying " you are only as old as you feel" and I have felt young....even youthful every since I was a kid! That got messed up for me when I had T
the motorcycle accident and I was feeling rather poorly. So I just changed the saying: " you are only as old as you felt before the accident and you will surely recover and feel great again". Well thank God I am getting better and feeling better, but man I look old!
