Time, Part 2

‘Time, time, time. See what’s become of me’-Hazy Shade of Winter

I always thought there was a line in this song that said ‘time, time, time look what you’ve done to me’ and I was surprised to find that there wasn’t. Maybe it has always been in my head that way whenever I heard the song. Or maybe it should be a line. The word time is in the dictionary as a noun, but damn, do I think it should be a verb. Time does things to us; it makes us feel things like nothing else in the world. It moves us, literally and figuratively. It can attack us; it sneaks up on us. It forces us to do things in a particular moment, things that we might not be ready to do but we have to. It forces us to take a minute and look at things in a different way. And let’s face it, it can absolutely drive us crazy, or maybe that’s just me.

I titled this post ‘Time, Part Two’ because as I was gathering my thoughts some things sounded familiar in my head. So, I went through my older posts and saw that I wrote about time once before, a few years ago, and I didn’t remember doing it. I debated writing about it again but decided that there’s always something more to be said and I had some new thoughts running through my mind that won’t leave. Time is the one part of life that messes with me the most mentally. Obviously, I understand the concept of time, I know how it works, but sometimes I just don’t get it. I want it to make more sense. Explain it to me like I’m a five-year-old and maybe I’ll understand it more, because at forty-seven, I’m lost most days. For instance, how is it that some days feel like they take forever to go by and other days turn into weeks so fast it makes your head spin? Is it something that we do or is it just the way it feels sometimes? And if it’s the latter then why doesn’t it feel the same way all of the time?

We’re in the third week of 2024 and I can’t decide if January is moving fast or slow. On the one hand I can’t believe it’s the 24^th already, and on the other hand it feels like Christmas was more than a month ago. It doesn’t make sense. And I can’t even comprehend what happened to 2023. There have been plenty of years in my life that have flown by but 2023 is by far the fuzziest in my mind. I’m not even sure that I lived that year all that much. The truth is that I didn’t. I was so consumed with sadness that I shut my eyes to everything else. I can only mark that year by two terrible things that happened in my life and nothing else. Sure, I can think hard and recall other moments, but I was so numb to everything. I wished for time to stop just so I could reset myself but it never did. You either go with the tide of time or you get swept up in it. And last year I definitely drowned.

Yes, I know how time works but I need more than that. It’s like money. I know where our money goes, I can account for every dollar that we spend, but I don’t understand how we go through it so fast. It all adds up right but it still doesn’t make sense. It’s the ‘how’ that gets me every time. My daughter was born in 2013, so last year she turned 10. I see that, I know that, I can add up the years to get to ten but I don’t know how it happened so fast. I can’t grasp it. In March my Grandmother will be gone for five years and I would still swear that we just said goodbye to her not too long ago. My husband’s aunt has been gone for seven years and when I saw the date and told him we both had the same feeling that it seemed much longer than that. My Grandmother’s five years seems like one, but his aunt’s seven feels like ten or fifteen. Why does time do that to us? How are we supposed to make sense of anything?

Maybe it’s not supposed to make sense. Maybe we’re supposed to accept it for what it is and not think about it too much. Maybe we’re supposed to concentrate on so many other things that time isn’t a factor in our lives. Maybe I waste so much of it and that’s why it weighs so heavy on me. Maybe the people who are really living their lives are too busy to even give it a second thought. They’re just happy with themselves and what they’re doing that time doesn’t take up so much space in their minds. Maybe I just need to let go of the idea that certain things need to be done by a certain time otherwise I have failed. Maybe I need to remember that I can’t change the past, I can’t get that time back so I just have to move forward. Maybe I need to not let time have such a grip on me that I feel like I can’t breathe. Maybe I need to let go if it all and actually live the life that is meant for me. Maybe I need to relax and ride the wave instead of letting it take me under. Maybe.