Tomorrow Never Comes!

Preface: For once I was prepared, organised and poised over the keyboard.  I wrote the piece, found an appropriate picture, composed a poem (of sorts) and prepared to send.  Searching for the email address I discovered, to my horror, that the title wasn’t Tomorrow Never Comes, as I’d thought, but Tomorrow Never Knows.   Well, it didn’t know what an idiot I was, that’s for sure.  So, due to lack of time, here is the original (with apologies to all concerned)……

When my children were little I couldn’t wait for tomorrow, the day that never came. Everything would be calmer, happier, easier, better.  Of course, it never was.  Each day was a challenge.  Having three children with fewer than four years between them it was never going to be anything else.  I was desperate for the crawler to start walking, the chatterbox to stop talking; the baby to sleep more than two hours at a time; and for nappies to be consigned forever to nappy heaven.  I couldn’t think further than tomorrow, and for the relief it would bring that today was now yesterday.

Just recently, I discovered some old diaries.  Oh, the angst, the despair, the constant guilt whatever I did, the tales of woe that were so important at the time.  One particular day was an all-time low.  I put the baby in the big Silver Cross pram.  He cried.  I put the toddler on the pram seat.  She cried.   I pushed the pram out of the house, holding the hand of my big boy, who I realise now was really hardly more than a baby himself.  As I walked like a zombie through Layton the baby and the toddler continued to cry, the big boy tripped and hurt his knee.  He cried. We walked on.  I felt tears pricking at my eyes. I steered the pram around and headed back.  The four of us cried all the way home.  If their dad had been with us I’m sure he would have cried too.  And if I could have snapped my fingers and had one wish that day, it would have been for time to miraculously move on ten, or even twenty years.  I wanted to leap through all my tomorrows to a time when I could cope again.

Fortunately, like giving birth, the pain and stress of my children’s early years has gradually faded into fuzzy memories, and, donning rose coloured spectacles, I think back fondly to the excited faces at Christmas and birthdays; the stories and cuddles under the covers; and the funny sayings that  have gone down in family history.

These days I’m quite glad if tomorrow never comes.  I can’t keep up with today, never mind tomorrow. As a chronic procrastinator with a deadline and midnight approaching I would love to slow down time, put off tomorrow for as long as possible.  The first time I heard the Beatles’ ‘When I’m Sixty Four,’ I never dreamed that it would apply to me.  On my birthday this year an old friend sang the whole song down the phone to me.  Halfway through I realized with shock and not a little sadness that tomorrow really had come.  I’d turned into my mum.  Her voice echoes in my head as I go through the name of every family member before finally settling on the correct one for the person waiting patiently in front of me.

Holding off tomorrow has become my life’s work since retirement.  I see the days, months and years slipping away from me – it’s Thursday again, we have the grandchildren;  August, must be Turkey;  2016, dad’s ninetieth birthday, how on earth did that happen?  My parents were always going to live forever.  I don’t want tomorrow sneaking up on them.   I add them to my list of reasons for slowing down time.

For now, I'm happy to live for today. Long may tomorrow stay safely in the distant future...

1982 - before tomorrow came!

Tomorrow Never Comes
Tomorrow

I’ll make a list

Sort out that room

Clean the cooker

Phone the dentist

Send that invoice

Edit those pictures

Contact the gas people

Do the ironing

Tidy those drawers

Empty the dishwasher

Mop the floor

Go to Sainsburys

Fill up with petrol

File my papers

Delete the rubbish on the Mac

Cull my friends’ list

Start my diet

Finish that story

Reply to emails

Get two birthday cards

Phone mum

Google Pokemon Go

Apply for a commission

Find an agent

Write that blog

 

Write that blog

 

Write that blog.

 

Thanks for reading, Jill Reidy.