The year goes by too quickly it seems

I say that facing another harsh winter ahead – the darkness, the cold, the ice and road salt – makes me glad to see the days come and go too quickly. Still, I can fathom at one level that I am staring down the barrel of winter so soon. It’s not that we haven’t had snow earlier in the year some years, or that we haven”t had colder late October days, but I’m just not ready for it all.

One week from now will be the time change. 4:48 PM will be the sunset. Then it will be too dark to ride all the way home, and I’ll need to catch the local bus home. And who knows how soon the cold and snow will make it impossible to ride in, though when I can I will still ride. It’s going to be harder now to do the express bus option eliminated and the local bus schedule not closely corresponding with the transfer from the shuttle.

Mom and Dad keep dropping hints of the time once they are gone. What is going to happen to the dog? The home, the 5-acre homestead? It’s pretty obvious my sister doesn’t want to move out to Westerlo and I do need some place to live after my apartment and I don’t think the off-grid cabin is going to happen right away while I’m still working in New York. And with my job, I am tied to Albany if I want to maximize pension and now decades of experience.

Still, it seems like time goes by too quickly. It seems hard to imagine a world without my parents, even though it is proably not that far away. But first to make it through the winter in my cold drafty apartment and enjoy whatever time remains …