December 14 at 3:24 in the Morning

December 14 at 3:24 in the Morning
A cautionary tale by Stuart Baum


It was December 14, 2009 at 3:23 in the morning.

In less than three hours I would have had to get up for another week of work, but I was already awake. And bored.

You have to know that my life was great. Operative word: was. My own company and no worries about having enough revenue to meet payroll, pay the bills and take a decent amount home. But I worked hard. Not hard labor, like the guy who blacktops our driveway every two years, but always ‘on’ while at work and always running to and from meetings.

My wife was asleep next to me. For a forty-two year old woman, she was plenty to look at. She took good care of herself and, to be honest, took very good care of me.

But I was bored. Not with her and not with my job. My accountant and I had discussed the year-end over the weekend and, while watching NFL games, I had finished the company budget for next year. It looked much like the year before. And the year before that. Again, decent numbers and decent profit, but I was tired of the looking forward to yet another holiday season and yet another year of being ‘on’ and shaking hands and meeting people and networking events and paperwork.

Here I was, lying in bed, at 3:23 in the morning just like I had for five, six, seven years before this, one year older, looking forward to pretty much the same week of work and the same holidays and the same year that follows and the same comments about how fast the year goes and then it’s 2007 and then 2008 and then 2009 and then, while thinking this, I made a dumb wish. I made the dumb wish at precisely 3:23 in the morning on December 14th, 2009.

         “I wish I could fast-forward a year. Why bother living it?”

I remember sighing aloud as I thought it.

         “Just fast-forward to the next year.”

And then the clock turned to 3:24.

In movies, when characters make stupid wishes and they get their stupid wish (usually good and hard), they make it through part of their morning before they realize things changed. Or look in the mirror to shave and see they are a woman or a little boy or an old man or…

But I knew something was wrong as soon as the clock changed. It was the same clock, but the bedside table was different. And I was in a different bed. And my wife was gone.

It was too dark to determine what more had changed, but I knew, without checking, that it was 3:24 am on December 14, 2010. That a year had passed in the blink of a wish and that the last year, he one I missed, had been a year of tragic change.

I even knew that it was a Tuesday. That December 14th fell on a Tuesday in 2010. Because unlike all those movie changes, I had lived this change. Lived every second of it, knew what had happened during every second of it, just fast-forwarded the entire year in a blink of a wish.

Reader: Look at the clock. What time is it? Now close and open your eyes quickly. What time is it now? Imagine that the first time you looked it was last year, though, and now it’s this year. Of course you remember everything that happened in the past year. You were there. But it went by in a blink of an eye.

I could tell you what happened last year, the year I missed. But would it matter? Could I have kept my marriage together? My marriage, which was solid for more than twenty years and fell entirely to shit in just eight months. Who knows? Hard to argue an alternate reality.

All that being said, I did close my eyes again and wish for the year back. I did slap my face and hope I woke up to realize this was a bad dream and I was back in 2009, but I knew… I knew. They year was gone. I had no wife. She had the house. I had the company still, but business was bad. We were in debt and two of my three employees had quit. Who knew they were the reason my clients were so happy to pay my invoices. I thought it was all my running to and from meetings, my being always ‘on.’

I knew the year was lost just like you know, sitting or lying there, that the last year is irrevocably gone and no matter what you do, you cannot undo anything that happened. You can look back and you can have any regrets you want, but there is no changing what has already occurred.

This is what happened to me in a blink of an eye between 3:23 and 3:24 a.m. on December 14th, 2009. I lost a year. I wished it away. And while I expected I was wishing away a year of boredom and sameness, I actually wished away a year of change, terrible change.

So, it’s 3:23 in the morning on December 15, 2010. A year and day since I wished away my year and I am awake … and not bored. No sameness now. Tomorrow, I have to meet with one of my three remaining clients to discuss our new, now smaller contract. Then, since I have time during the workweek, my accountant and I will discuss the year-end and if I should bother to even open the doors in 2011. I will, since I am unsure what my other option might be, and I think I can get the place turned back around. And then, in the afternoon a networking event, hoping my new desperation isn’t too obvious. I wish I were back where I was last year, when I could tell people that I wasn’t really looking for more work. “Just enjoying everyone’s company,” I would say aloud, while thinking to myself, ‘Just going through the motions.’

But worse, far worse, is what I will do after work. I will drive over to my wife’s house, my old house, to pick up my youngest daughter and take her to dinner. The one day a week I see her. I’ll take her somewhere nice, even though I will regret the credit card charge when it appears on the statement, but it’s my only night a week with her and I want it to be nice. And it will be nice. She’s a good kid … a good almost woman … and she and I get along well. But we got along better last year and I took that for granted. Classic tale.

So I look at the clock. 3:23 in the morning on December 15th, 2010. And I wish I had the last year back. 3:23 in the morning on December 15th, 2010. I close my eyes.

         “I wish it were back to 2009.”

I sigh, then open my eyes. 3:24. Still the same year. 2010. I will never get 2009 back.

And while I wonder if I can get my old life back in the coming year, I do not, I force myself not to think … NOT TO THINK … what my brain wants me to think. I want to live this next year, no matter what comes. No matter how much sameness, how much effort for no difference. Because now I know what happens. I know what could happen. Even though it would likely have happened just the same had I actually lived it day by day minute-by-minute. But maybe it wouldn’t have. Maybe I could have been here, looking at the clock at 3:24 in the morning on December 15th, 2010, with my wife beside me, my year-end and next year planning done and thinking that it was going to be another year of the same … and not appreciating that would have been better, world’s better, than lying here now, alone, wishing I had that year back to do over again. Or at least live fully to see if I could make it better.

It’s December 15th, 2010 at 3:24 in the morning. A day and a year later. And, sadly, I’m no longer bored.

THE END.