Dear Jessica Brennan,
“Where does time go?”
How often do we hear that in our daily lives? The summer is over. Another year gone. A child turns 18. Gone.
The other day I saw someone I hadn’t seen in years and she asked me, “How old is Jessica now?” I could scarcely believe the words as they came out of my own mouth.
The fleeting nature of this system called time that humans have created to mark history and the future, was best described in day-to-day terms by John Cleese’s always profound Basil Fawlty.
What was that? That was your life mate!
Here’s the funny thing about time.
If you’re waiting for a diagnosis from your doctor, ten minutes can seem like an eternity.
If you’re late for your doctor’s appointment, ten minutes isn’t nearly long enough.
If you’re a scattered bride with only three minutes until you leave for the church, those minutes evaporate before your eyes. But if you’re the groom standing sweating at the altar, three minutes seems like an hour.
There are events that make time malleable. Christmas is one of them. On one hand, if you’re say 50 years old, you feel like you took the lights down from the eaves five minutes ago, and there you are putting them back up again. However if you’re 6 years old, and you are waiting for Santa to come down the chimney, it takes ages.
The last two hours of a Friday afternoon before a long weekend, take a very long time. Two-hour concerts that you are loving, fly by.
Summer holidays when you’re a kid are long and lovely, but I suspect when you’re a teacher they move by considerably faster.
I used to worry that I wouldn’t have enough time in my life to do everything I wanted to do. I don’t fret about it anymore, because I’ve come to realize that if you don’t always have more things to do you likely aren’t doing life right.
One thing about time that is sad, is how much of it we waste looking backward and forward. When I say, “I’m looking forward to seeing my buddy Dave at the Waltzing Weasel on Friday night.” That’s a good thing. But often worry is tied to looking forward too, and we waste a lot of time in the “what if” realm that steals today, to worry about something that likely won’t happen tomorrow. Also, looking back and being full of regret about the past is another way to steal the present. Don’t blame the past for who you are today.
Wayne Dyer used to say, “The wake doesn’t drive the boat.” What happened ten years ago, last month or last week, is gone. You don’t need it any longer. You need the now, and you can change that in any and every moment. There is a lot of talk about mindfulness and present moment awareness, and simply put, it really just means spending your time where you are, doing what you’re doing with the person you’re doing it with, and making choices in each moment that are good.
So how will you spend your time Dear Jessica and Dear Reader? If you think of it like currency, will you just toss it around loosely, saying yes to every time-thief and life-sucker until it is all gone?
Time. It is an invisible yet valuable commodity – yours to spend and yours to waste – yours to cherish as it’s slipping into the future.
Love,
Mum xo
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