When Someday Starts Feeling Like Yesterday 

By E. P. Foster | October 2026

There are things I've been telling myself I'll do someday.

Someday I'll slow down. Someday I'll have a little place with some land, a garden, maybe a few chickens wandering around. Somewhere I can hang clothes on a line, sit on the porch with a cup of coffee, and watch the world wake up without feeling like I have to rush off somewhere.

Nothing fancy. Nothing extravagant.

Just a little peace.

The older I get, though, the more I wonder what happened to someday.

I'm 57 now. I've spent most of my adult life working, paying bills, raising a family, trying to get ahead, and doing what I believed I was supposed to do. And somehow, somewhere in the middle of all that, the years went by.

I don't remember agreeing to that.

I look back sometimes and wonder whether I was so busy trying to make a living that I forgot to enjoy the life I was making.

And that's a difficult thing to admit.

Because when I think about my children growing up, I remember how busy we always seemed to be. There was always somewhere to go, something to do, another responsibility waiting.

I was tired. Mentally and physically tired.

And sometimes I was short with my kids.

Not because I didn't love them. I did. But loving someone and making them feel loved aren't always the same thing, are they?

I wonder how many times they wanted nothing more than a little of my attention, and I was already thinking about the next thing I had to do.

I wonder how many ordinary moments we missed because we were all so busy getting through the day.

I can't say that a slower life would have changed everything. I don't know that. But I do wonder whether I would have been more patient, more present, and less consumed by everything I thought needed to get done.

And that's something I can't go back and fix.

I can't make my children little again. I can't go back to a Saturday afternoon twenty years ago and decide that whatever needed doing could wait.

Those days are gone.

That's the part about getting older that I don't think we talk about enough. It's not just that we're running out of time to do the things we wanted to do. It's realizing that some of the things we wanted were available to us all along, and we didn't recognize how much they mattered until they were behind us.

I used to think about being a good husband, father, and son in terms of responsibilities. Providing. Working. Taking care of things. Doing what needed to be done.

Those things matter. They still do.

But I wonder whether I became so focused on performing those duties that I forgot I was also supposed to enjoy being those things.

Sometimes I wish I could have just sat there with everyone around me. No schedule. No expectations. No feeling that I needed to be accomplishing something.

Just being together.

And being content.

The strange thing is, I still struggle with that today.

When I finally get a little time to myself, I'm often too tired to do much of anything. So I turn on the television or pick up my phone and start scrolling.

An hour passes. Sometimes two.

Then I look up and wonder where the time went.

I've spent so much of my life wishing I had more time, and when I finally get some, I don't always know what to do with it.

Even the thought of sitting on that porch with a glass of lemonade, watching the sunset, brings another thought into my head.

Shouldn't I be doing something?

Am I wasting the time God has given me?

But then I have to ask myself where I got the idea that every moment has to be productive to be worthwhile.

Ecclesiastes tells us that finding satisfaction in our work and enjoying the good things of life are gifts from God.

Maybe I've spent too much time concentrating on the work and not enough on the gift.

I don't know.

I still have bills to pay. Responsibilities haven't disappeared. I can't simply trade the life I have for the one I sometimes wish I'd lived.

And I don't want to pretend that a cup of coffee on a porch is going to solve everything.

It won't.

But maybe there's something worth learning from the picture I keep carrying around in my head.

Maybe what I've wanted all these years isn't really the house or the land or even the rocking chair.

Maybe I've just wanted to reach a point where I could sit down, look around at the people I love, and feel that for this moment, nothing else needs to happen.

Nobody needs to accomplish anything.

Nobody needs to be anywhere.

We can just be here.

Together, or even alone.

And be content.

I don't know whether I'll ever have that little place in the country. I'd still like to. I'd still like the garden, the chickens, and the porch.

But I am beginning to wonder whether I need to stop waiting for someday before I allow myself to enjoy today.

Because someday has a way of becoming yesterday.

And I'd rather not spend whatever years I have left wishing I'd paid more attention to the ones I'm living now.

E. P. Foster