Countdowns...

I have recently been amusing myself with countdowns. A friend of mine (a few, actually) are leaving for their missions next month and are counting down the days on Facebook. I laughed, remembering "only yesterday" when they were trying to mentally calculate exactly when their mission calls would even come in the mail. Then I remembered my own countdown to our wedding, and the various countdowns of friends' babies, birthdays, and other big events. When I was a little girl, we had a Christmas Countdown calendar every year (often of our own making).

What is our obsession with time, with looking forward? And what do we do in the meantime? The few countdowns I remember, on a personal note, were not all that pleasant. Time stretched out the more I looked forward to something, and especially when those somethings involved a lot of planning on my part I became easily overwhelmed...my excitement only made me more irritable. I know you know what I mean. It's an almost universal phenomenon, I see it all the time, and sometimes I wonder why we torture ourselves with all the anticipation. Either we are all of us masochists, or there is something about looking forward to "better days" that we need like we need air. Or maybe both. Without a dream, and without an almost tangible timeline to follow as we realize it, maybe something in our cosmic DNA withers and dies. Even though I know better, I countdown to many things.

My question is, what are you looking forward to right now? What is on your countdown?