SOMEDAY IS COMING ... SOMEDAY.

Byline: Michele Miles Gardiner

Local View

IT'S more exciting than any holiday, and more thrilling than any vacation. The day I look forward to is -- someday! Yes, someday. It can be next month or next week. And occasionally it's a year or two from now, but it's always someday.

Someday is the day I will look really great in my jeans again and finish the oil painting I started two years ago. It's when I will grow an herb garden. It's when I will learn French beyond the minimum I now get by with, which is just enough to keep me sheltered and fed in a small village.

Someday is the day I will publish my fifth book -- even if, for now, I have yet to send out my first book proposal.

Yes, someday is really a magical time because that's when I will be sophisticated and fashionable -- even if today I can barely walk 10 feet without tripping or spilling something on my drugstore sweat shirts. You see, today is just today. Who cares what I look like now? It's the future that counts.

Someday is when I will be invited to all sorts of fabulous parties. And I just know someday I will attend the most amazing New Year's Eve party of my life. I see myself in something sparkly. Wow! I look great. I'm dancing on tables along with other partygoers. We are so euphoric we can't help ourselves. It'll make up for all the New Year's Eves I've ever spent driving in the rain as a radio host counts down the seconds, or all the ones spent on the couch watching Dick Clark's countdown.

Thanks to somedays, I sleep well at night. I don't worry about all the things I've put off -- jogging, bike riding, learning to surf. I know that tomorrow, next week, next month, I will do it all.

This isn't new for me. My inability to do today what can be done tomorrow has been a lifelong problem. Even at four years old, when attending family parties, I couldn't wait until my legs were long enough so I could reach the dip and chips on kitchen counters. In school, I drifted off dreaming about flying cars and the TV-telephones of the future.

Hey, please understand I don't spend all my time dwelling in someday. I have great gratitude for what I have today. I appreciate my funny, hardworking husband and my lovely, 17-year-old daughter -- when she's not telling me how little I know. They make today a wonderful place to be. But now that I think about it, I do hope someday my daughter will catch herself saying, "My parents were right."

Maybe it's the optimist in me. Or maybe it's denial and procrastination that have me believe someday is going to be great.

But I don't think I'm alone. Take a look at what's going on in America today with people buying homes they couldn't really afford or stacking up debt in credit cards. I figure subprime-mortgage lenders and American credit-card companies depend on many Americans' hope in someday.

Isn't that why many people put off paying today what can be paid some other day? Isn't it the someday in the future many count on? That's when adjustable-interest rates hover or dip and never rise. Someday is when people will receive raises, rake in cash in the stock market, win the lottery or stumble upon a Van Gogh at a garage sale.

See, I know I'm not alone in my glamorization of someday. When I stop to think about it, as I am now, I have to face reality. The truth is, someday isn't a sure thing. Actually, today is my someday of yesterday. Unfortunately, someday doesn't greet us with balloons and music. "It's here -- the day when it's all going to happen!" Someday, very unceremoniously, sneaks in a moment at a time.

So if I write one page today and edit one tomorrow -- a month from now I'll be closer to a completed book. And maybe for folks in debt, they can save a dollar today rather than owe it tomorrow with interest.

As corny as it sounds, it's true -- someday is here. I've got lots to do. How will you spend it?