A Day In The Life

I wanted to write to this topic without going on about you-know-what. What is normal for us changes over time and always will.

Six months ago a normal day for me involved working at the Op Shop in Geeveston which I did two or three days a week for about three years. My day usually began with me being picked up by my friend Karen at around 8:30 am. The day was spent unpacking and sorting and pricing donations, putting things out on shelves or tidying them, serving customers, and carrying rubbish to the skip bin. There was also a lot of talking, laughing and eating.

Ten years ago a normal day was getting up at 6am and catching the early bus to Hobart to my cleaning job at a Hobart hotel. A day spent making beds, vacuuming carpets, washing dishes and cleaning bathrooms. At the end of each day, I looked forward to the long bus ride home that took me from the city to the country.

Twenty years ago a normal day was doing the same thing but in a hotel in Adelaide. A regular part of my day was walking through the Adelaide parklands to North Adelaide to get to work instead of getting the bus.

Thirty years ago a normal day for me was going to work at my job at the Adelaide Railcar Depot where I cleaned graffiti, picked up rubbish and cleaned the insides and outsides of railcars. I did that for about twelve years so it felt very strange to stop doing it and do something else but I got used to it.

I guess that the moral of this story if there is one, is that nothing lasts forever and there are many kinds of normal. We lose people we love, we move away from friends, we leave jobs, but we adjust and carry on.