TIME...or My Existential Side...

 Time Has Come ~The Chambers Brothers

Time…somewhat illusory, don’t you think? I’ve thought about time my whole life really; and from a whole bunch of different perspectives and viewpoints depending on such variables as my age, circumstance and frame of mind. In fact, I even observe time in visuals – one in particular. Since I was a child I have always pictured the year – 12 months - like a clock. January is at 12:00; June at 6:00 and so on. I don’t know what prompted that visual but I’ve always had it and when I think of a month, I see it on a clock - always. But I digress…

Time…it is something we often take for granted, especially in our youth. I never thought about tomorrow in my teens and twenties. I didn’t plan a thing and lived only for the day. I suppose I had my reasons for that…doesn’t matter now. I remember at the age of 25, thinking, wow, I’ve got 25 more years before even hitting 50! Time in those days was an endless luxury. Days were longer and there seemed an infinite array of possibilities laid out before me. By the time I hit my mid 30’s my perspective was starting to shift a bit. I saw my mother and step-dad aging; watched their friends die and worried…how much longer before time would force me to endure their loss? I noticed the days becoming shorter. Still, at the age of say 37, I perceived an extravagant amount of time ahead of me – more than 10 years until I even hit fifty.

Time…it is camouflaged by seconds, minutes, weeks, days, months and years. 40 was a bit of a turning point for me. The folks were ill and where once I’d counted on them for assistance, they now counted on me. My own children were in the early stages of adulthood and I unwittingly became a grandmother at the age of 41. I felt the noose of time tightening around my neck.

Time… “is a sort of river of passing events, and strong as its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” ~Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.  I’m now in my early 50’s. Somewhere – I’m not sure of the exact time or place, or the year or particular age, in the midst of the endless luxury of time, a small seed of awakening has been occurring, bringing with it the awareness of the passage of time. My view of time is vastly altered from the perception of my youth. Oh, I still see the clock – that never changes; only now I hear the ticking as well. My parents are gone and I’ve lost a dear friend. My children are well into adulthood and I’m watching my grandchildren grow, oh so fast. There is no denying the speed with which each moment in time is passing.

Time…, “Tomorrow and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day.” ~William Shakespeare. The interpretation of the word illusion is: “action of mocking;” “something that deceives or misleads intellectually;” “Perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature,” “a pattern capable of reversible perspective” (Merriam Webster). And that is time; an impossible to win game, an anomaly and something not to be grasped. Time is like a runaway train. You cannot keep up with it and don’t know how it has slipped through your fingers. I was just feeding my baby girl and yet 32 years have passed. I’m a grandmother with sore fingers, hormonal issues and gray hairs hidden by a $4 bottle of dye.

Time…it’s like a thief in the night. At the age of 53 I must conclude that the only way to grasp time is to let go of it. It’s not real. What is real is the moment in which we/I exist right now. The ones before and the ones to come are phantoms that exist to steal us away from savoring the present moment. Too much awareness of time forces one to live in a story of the past and/or a projection of the future, melancholy, angry or wistful for what has been and anxious, striving, fearful or discontent for what may or may not come.

Time has come today…to acknowledge and cherish this moment in time and recognize that is all there ever is.

Time…
“Now the time has come,
There are things to realize.
Time has come today…
Time has come today…”
~Chambers Brothers