Four O'Clock Hour

Today reminds me of my dad. In fact, it puts me especially in awe of my dad...not that I wasn't before.

The past few days I have been putting in twelve to fourteen hour days, working my butt off, trying to just do a little good. This has been a tough thing for me to cope with, and frankly, after a day like today, you're getting my last few cohesive thoughts that I can eek out. And I wonder how he does it. Every day of my very existence, and probably much longer, my dad has gotten up sometime during the four o'clock hour, worked all day long, come home to do projects around the house or play with us, head to bed during the ten o'clock news, and do it all over again the next day.

I won't pretend to understand what drives him to work so hard, but I desperately want some of that. At some point, you find yourself running on motivation and heart alone. Your body cries for you to just sit down, your mind feels like it has been through a meat grinder a few times, it's all you can do to keep from tearing up at your to-do list, and you begin to operate on some sort of fumes rather than fuel. Tonight I wonder if the motivation is enough to keep a person going, and if so, for how long. For my dad, it seems to be endless, just enough for him to roll out of bed in the four o'clock hour for one more day...again and again. And for me, I'm sure it will be the same. The pressure of being the new kid at work can't last forever, right?

If this post makes no sense, well, blame it on the meat grinder.