Weekend Tradition

Yesterday, I failed to live up to my weekend tradition. I woke up at 7:30 am, instead of my usual 'up before dawn' weekend tradition. Today, not so. I was up at 5:30 am, with time to make coffee and read the day's news and ease into the day slowly, at a comfortable pace, before the sun rises. Being up in the dark house alone, with no interaction except with myself, is nice. My wife is sleeping soundly, and probably has by now taken over the middle of the bed since I am no longer there to thwart her territorial imperialistic tendencies.

There is something very comforting about being up alone at this hour on a weekend morning. Even on days like today, when I know I will have to go to the office later, it relieves stress somehow. It's very different during the week; I can get up very early during the workweek, which I rarely do, but the sense of well-being I have on the weekend just isn't there. I suppose it's the sense of imminent obligations to be met that dampens the day when there's office work and office interactions ahead.

Today, though, it's nice. The coffee has brewed and its aroma fills the kitchen and the living room, where I have my computer for now. With my first cup of coffee, I can write...empty my head of thoughts that have waited all night to spill out...and take a look at the news. Reading the news from around the world, though, is rarely pleasant. But it's real. Today, I may try to stay away from my news habit; instead, I may focus my attention away from reading online news and toward reading my newest book acquisition, Mexico's Lake Chapala & Ajijic: The Insider's Guide. I bought the book very recently, at a price I considered too high, and was disappointed not in the content but in the quality of the printing. I'll have to wait to comment about the content. I've already learned some interesting tidbits, through just a tad of casual scanning.

I'm a man nearing my middle fifties, a business-owner with responsibilities to clients and employees, a home-owner with a significant mortgage on my house...I'm not of retirement age yet nor of retirement means. Those are the facts. But the wishes are different. I want to retire now. I have no resources to enable me to do it, but I want to do it, nonetheless. I want to be out from under the responsibility of providing an income to people. I want to be out from under the responsibility for providing the year-round headquarters offices of several client organizations. Instead, I want to make a difference in the world, doing something that will matter, while simultaneously not having to worry about where the money is coming from. But that's unrealistic. I might as well say I want to be a tall, athletic British television actor. No amount of wishing will make it so. I suppose I am experiencing the 'middle age crazies.'

Enough of this. It's 6:30 am now and I need to move on to enjoy what's left of today's morning darkness.