Can I really "spend" a day?

Thomas Merton wrote in May 1965 the following:

“When you are beginning to get old, and I am beginning to be old, for I am fifty, both times and places no longer take on the same meaning. Do I have a “day”? Do I spend my “day” in a “place”?

I don’t know where Merton was going with this but I wondered about this idea of having a day or spending a day? Do I think of a day as something to be used for my pleasure, as I see fit? Is the place I spend that day a place of my own choosing or is that another illusion that I have spent a day and in a place? I turned 53 this week, am I beginning to get old? Then, I better start thinking more about my days and places–being present in each moment, wherever God brings me.

Merton’s quote was in A Year with Merton edited by Jonathan Montaldo, May 3

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