Someday

Head's up, y'all...  this one's gonna ramble.  Something happened this week that touched a couple of nerves.  Not physical nerves, or literally a couple (you know who you are), but a few figurative ones.  

I blogged in the past about empty buildings and the homeless.  Just a few days before the event in question, I was discussing the same with a nephew.  I mentioned The Bodmer, a historic hotel here in my adopted hometown.  It was built in the 1930s as a hotel.  Beautiful architecture, massive building.  And it's been sitting unused for 30 years.  It's a local landmark.  Well, it was.  Turns out I was wrong when I told the nephew it was structurally sound.  One wall collapsed and took out another empty building next to it, which may have broken a third building (which is in use).  Both empty buildings were uninsured and neglected.  Why own them if you aren't going to take care of them?!  Likely response - "I was gonna fix it up someday."

My mother had a car.  It spent most of my childhood in the back yard, weeds grown up around it.  She did get it barely running from time to time.  But most of my memories of that car involve weeds and wheel-well wasps.  She had intentions of "fixing it up someday".  She eventually lost the house and the car went with it.  I have a few things I want to fix up someday, but I find a use for them and take care of them to the best of my ability in the meantime.  I don't park them in the backyard and let wasps live in them.  I don't let them collapse into Second Street and maybe bust another person's head or property.

I have a little table, for example.  The legs are wrought-iron or look like it.  I've painted them with Rustoleum just in case.  At some point, the glass top broke and my grandmother covered it with shelf liner so she could continue to use it.  Right now the top is a shelf from a broken TV stand - ironic, since I still think of it as Mamma's TV table.  My printer sits on it.

We had a lot of antique furniture when I was a kid, and some of the pieces are still around (I have seven siblings, after all) but far too many of them rotted away as they waited for Someday.  The legs broke off one of them - a huge, heavy buffet table - and I improvised legs for it and still used it. Looked awful, but damage was being minimized and it was still in use.  Eventually, it got "put away" for the proper repairs it would get Someday.  It's gone now.

I always said I'd hike the Appalachian  Trail... Someday.  I didn't stay in shape, I didn't save my pennies for gear, and now I know it's never going to happen.  Even if I come into millions, my poor ole body couldn't take it.  The owners of those buildings and my mother never got their Someday, either, at least in part because of their own lack of forethought.

If you want to do it, and you can't right now, take steps to make it possible if Someday ever comes. Don't let your Bodmer rot away because you can't fix it perfectly right now.  Upkeep, to the best of your ability, will make Someday much easier if it ever comes.