Time keeps on slipping (into the future)

Posted On January 13, 2019

Damn you, Time. You’ve done it again.

Slipped away when I wasn’t paying attention — AGAIN. (If you hadn’t already figure this out, I’m not very good at paying attention because this seems to happen to me a lot.)

I just read an article which discusses how physics is to blame for the feeling that time is moving more quickly the older you get. Something to do with mental-image processing time and some other things that kind of made my head explode, like the difference between “clock time” and “mind time” and how the brain processes visual information when the eyes fixate in between unconscious, jerk-like eye movements called saccadic eye movements that occur a few times a second. But the point is, at least I can use this as evidence to back up my claim that I cannot believe it’s been nearly a year since I’ve posted on my blog.

A whole. Freaking. Year.

360 days to be exact. (A shout-out to Google for not making me do the simple math myself.)

Last time you heard from me, Boy #1 was turning 20. Well, guess what, friends? (Cue the drum roll…) He’s now turning 21! And if that isn’t a real “adult” in every sense of the word, I don’t know what is. He was already able to buy cigarettes or even vape if he wanted (which fortunately he doesn’t). But now he can legally drink or bet it all on a craps table here in Iowa. Heck, he can even buy some recreational marijuana when he travels to Colorado or California.

Fortunately, it seems that despite all our flaws and failures, Husband and I have turned out one pretty awesome adult. He is responsible, caring, dedicated and passionate. He’s a much better almost-21-year-old than I was, for sure!

What you may not realize is that besides having a 21-year-old in a few short days, I will also have a 17-year-old four days later — a boy in the second half of his junior year of high school. What the heck, Time? Why you gotta be so cruel?

It seems, my friends, that not only does ONE of your children grow up faster than you could ever imagine, but they ALL do. AND each child seems to grow up faster than the last. Case in point: Next year at this time, my “baby” will be halfway through his first year of HIGH SCHOOL.

Maybe it’s because I’m older and just not paying as close attention as I used to. Maybe it’s just science. Either way, it sucks.

Which is why I’m trying to soak up the “now” more. If anything is able to whip my anxiety up to a frenzy, it’s Time. For someone who feels like life is out of control, Time is the ever-present adversary. So I have been trying to do more noticing of the here and now. Noticing sounds, colors, smells. Cataloging details about the present and then tucking them away for when they become my memories in the hopes that even though I can’t slow down time, at least I can maybe look back on the past with clearer details instead of just as a nondescript blur of happenings that I was too busy to really take in when they occurred.

John Green said, “One day, you’re 17 and you’re planning for someday. And then quietly, without you ever really noticing, someday is today. And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life.”

I believe this is so true. My hope for you all in this new year we’ve been given is that you’ll enjoy the moments of “now,” and even if you can’t enjoy all the moments (like discovering 7 dirty plates and half a loaf of moldy bread under your son’s bed), that you’ll at least appreciate their fleetingness and find what charm in them you can. Knowing that with each passing year, time goes faster and faster, sooner rather than later we’ll be longing for just one more chance to open that door and see a messy teenager’s clothes strewn about instead of a neatly made-up guest bed.

Photo by Noah Silliman