Tempus Fugit

Tempus fugit. It is mid-February. There are appointments in my calendar that run well into March, plans with friends, dinner parties, social events, meetings with medical professionals. Just a few days ago it was Christmas; Valentine's Day has now passed, Easter looms. The long weekend markers of my schedule which used to mean so much for me are now just incidental. The real measure of time for me is which month I am in.

Time has become one of the quintessential focal points for my life. As it passes, I decline. As it passes, I continue to live, with ALS. Each day is another important date, another date where I get to keep going, keep striving for something resembling the new normal that is my life. Each day gives me another opportunity to find something worth living for, no matter how small.

I am now well into my third year post-diagnosis. I've done much better than the neurologists expected, much better than I planned. I face the almost egregious insult of living too long as my assets slowly get eaten away. Here I am, regardless of time's passage, still typing, still driving, still cooking, still laughing, still loving.

Spring will be here in another month. Winter will end, at least on the calender. Here in the Great White North, winter will live on in expression if not in name. Yet the vernal equinox will arrive and day will be longer than night once again. As spring wends on, the snow will disappear and warm days will become the fixture once again, leading us into the peripatetic summer that can still throw cold weather at us.

As I look down the calendar pathway, I see things out there, three and four months away. I see summer events, summer parties, spring road trips. My daughter is expecting a new child in June. My sixtieth birthday is on July 21st. There are things to plan for, places to go. It is this expectation of tomorrow which makes me keep striving to live today. Soon enough ALS will take so much of me that all of this will be impossible. That time is coming; tempus fugit. That's why I need to live for today.