Something to Look Forward to

When we were kids we had breaks to look forward to. Summer break, winter break, spring break. Between those there were Pro D days that seemed to pop up randomly and be welcomed greatly. Holidays brought long weekends, snow days brought relief. Even when school, and sports, and arts weighed you down, there was the promise of a day off in the semi-near future, and until then, the weekend.
We don’t have that anymore. Now we just have work in between everything. No breaks, no days off, no relief. It’s all we can do sometimes to make the seemingly insignificant things something to look forward to. There’s a tradition now, with me and my friend on Friday, to purchase cheese buns from the grocery store on the opposite end of the mall we work at. We look in earnest at the clock, counting down the minutes until our lunch break when we can journey to our beloved cheese buns. Some weeks are rougher early on and we have to move our bun day back, just to give us some semblance of happiness. It works every time.
The same thing goes for online shopping. When your email spews random discount codes to the companies you devote your wallet to, the knowledge of receiving something in the mail is enough to splurge. Do you have enough clothes? Yes. Do you need more for fifteen percent off? Yes. Are you out of space for house decor? Yes. Can you manage to fit five new candles, a plant, and a couple of fun bowls? Yes. You may already have a tower of books hazardously stacked on shelves or a closet floor covered in shoes. Your cutlery drawer could already hold an absurd amount of forks for one person, or your cabinet could be overfull with mugs. But the euphoria you’ll receive five to eight days of ordering something you want and will enjoy overpowers everything else. You have nothing in your house as you add another item to your online cart. There’s no ungodly supply of makeup pallets and skincare products in your bathroom. You don’t own any blankets or decorative pillows. Journals and notebooks? They never existed in your presence before you bought nine of them. Giving your future self something fun feels like a reward for making it through another day. It’s a gift to you for making it that far. When the day comes to finally pick up your package, it doesn’t even register as something you paid for, as enough time has passed in between, which makes it all the better!
Then there are the events that require more effort, money, booked time off work, advanced planning. These are scattered throughout the year. An evening at a haunted house and corn maze, an overnight trip to Vancouver, a concert or two, a wee getaway in Tofino. Having these kinds of events and plans keep the future in high hopes, which for a lot of folk, is desperately needed. Having something momentous written down on your calendar makes the days you suffer at work feel more worth it. The money is being saved up for a reason beyond rent. The hours you spend doing the same routine tasks bring the opportunity to mentally plot out all the details months in advance. The clothes you’ll pack, the food you’ll try, the places you’ll shop, the things you specifically want to do there that you can’t do anywhere else. The days and weeks and months that pass by suddenly mean something. Their passing allows that special date marked on your calendar to draw ever closer with the promise of temporary freedom. 
When the days of seasonal breaks and holiday vacations have gone, those small traditions, random purchases, and faraway adventures are the glue that keeps your brain intact and stops your soul from imploding. It gives you more than just birthdays to get hyped about and if you’re working long, tiring hours for unsatisfying pay, these things are essential. Life shouldn’t be bland and empty just because summer is only a season and Christmas is more stressful. We still need to have something to brighten our days to come, a shift in our day-to-day existence. Whether it’s a four day stay with friends at a rented out house or a freshly baked cheese bun, it’s needed all the same to keep our chins and spirits up.