I’ve reset my countdown clock to November

OUR ability to change has been tested to the limits over the last months. It may have been the few drinks after work that became no more. The favourite restaurant that had its doors closed. If you wanted to watch a film, it was not going to be on a big screen. You couldn’t meet friends and if you did, there wasn’t a lot to talk about except how you were coping with doing none of the things you wanted to, and were you sitting far enough apart, and “I suppose a hug is out of the question”. After a while, the novelty wore off. All of these disruptions caused some upset.

For the last few weeks, the way people are talking about travel, you would think we all had a dozen foreign holidays a year. As someone who likes to travel, I listen. I am never happier than when boarding a plane. I think I would quarantine until Christmas in exchange for a few sun-filled days splashing in the Mediterranean.

I am something of a slave to my diary. Things get written in and, while they are not set in stone, they may as well be. I like to know in February where I will be at Christmas and I probably book the tickets by March. I knew exactly what I would be doing, where and with whom, in France last April. That was the first significant deletion from the diary. It hurt. I told myself it was a small thing compared to what others had to deal with. I used that magic potion of putting it all in perspective. Then I was to go to the USA in May and that didn’t happen. That hurt more. I was getting fed up with perspective and a little too used to that ‘oh no, not again’ feeling.

We set ourselves up for disappointment when we believe that there is some thing or person that we must have to be happy. That is why I never lusted after a Ferrari. But life is not worth living if we do not set our sights high and disappointment is inevitable. We need to dust ourselves off and start all over again. But that is in normal times. These days, we are having to put up with losing control over important parts of our lives. An invisible highly-destructive virus is determining what we can and cannot do.

I am normally very good at dealing with change but it is typically with a multitude of alternatives to choose from. Usually it is not changes in the things I really want to do. And it is certainly not in things that I count down the days to. Some people may scoff at a few lads who enjoy getting on a plane and playing bad golf in America but we all count the days and the count was suspended again last week. Because Donald Trump is such an idiot, 10 days of fun and conversation has been consigned to the deleted page of the diary. Distraught is an understatement for what I felt. I suspect my immune system went into free fall.

There is a phrase to ‘have your heart set’ on something. Well, my heart and countdown clock have just had a full reset. On the positive side, I was in two supermarkets last week and everyone, absolutely everyone, was wearing a mask. Thankfully some people are exercising what control we do have to return to normality and the blast of heat when you step off the plane. Today I am resetting the clock and beginning a new countdown. There are only so many sleeps left before days of wearing shorts on pristine golf courses observed by the alligators and evenings splashing in the pool with a few laughs and a glass of red wine. November would be good. The experience would be so much better if I could turn on the TV and see shots of Trump packing up his belongings and licking his wounds.

Now that is something I really and truly have my heart set on.