I sometimes wonder where the past 24 hours went. I blamed it on retirement for quite some time. The lack of structure. The flexibility. The ‘no place to be’ syndrome.

Last week my hair stylist (who is my daughter’s age) mentioned that it felt like Christmas had just happened three months ago and is now creeping upon us once again. I was glad to hear her confirm my feelings. I almost can’t enjoy holidays anymore because it feels like we just celebrated it last week and who can gather that much energy to celebrate it again?

I get up at 6 a.m. and suddenly the 6 p.m. news is on and it’s time to fix dinner. It’s Sunday evening and I’m planning my week: suddenly it’s Friday and I got nothing on my list completed.

Life is a speedway from dawn to dusk. We race along freeways, we race to the store, we race to meet friends. We are constantly racing. When you race, time does seem to speed up. It may just be in our imaginations, but it feels very real. We get instantaneous information from our phones, tablets and computers. We don’t have to slow down and go to the library to look something up.

And at my age, technology wears me out. I’m on a constant learning curve; I’m so busy learning the newest way to do things, I don’t get those things done at all. It takes me forever to learn the newest version of the account program my bank uses. It was fine the way it was. I knew where every button was, every option, where on the page to find a balance or a chance to pay a bill. They changed it for no reason. Now it takes me forever to figure out where the same danged button is on the new program. So suddenly what used to take me 5 minutes can take up to a half hour. If ever one of my tasks takes 6 to 10 times longer than it used to, no wonder I keep getting less and less completed each day.

“Please stop changing things!” I want to scream. Because honestly, we don’t need that much change. I walked into my local grocery store in September after being gone for two months, and they had literally shut down the store and moved every single item to a different location. I’m serious. What used to be on the left side of the store was now on the right; center aisles had been changed as well. The only thing I recognized was the produce and the meat counter. I know where nothing is these days. They handed me a map of the store last time I was in. Seriously??

I now need a map to shop for groceries? And yet if I don’t look at it, I could wander the store for an hour. Perhaps that was there actual reason for doing this. To get people to walk every single aisle looking for canned peaches or a box of salt.

I’m tired of learning. I’m tired of change. I’m tired of technology creating more and more stress in my life. Yes, I’m whining. I need a beach far away from wi fi and cell towers!