What the heck!
It is June 4 already!
JUNE!
JUNE!!!
Does anyone else feel like it shouldn't be June already - it should be more like March, maybe April, but definitely not June. Although it is still technically spring, it will soon be summer in my little area of the world. SUMMER! Unbelievable. I feel like if I blink, I will miss summer entirely, skip fall and be facing winter ... again!
I willingly admit that as I age I have a love hate relationship with time. I love that I have more free time day-to-day than at any other point in my life. I love that I can do nothing for a day - pushing planned to-dos into the future, because there is more time in my future than ever before (hopefully.) I love that through the passage of time I have learned to be more respectful of the time gift I have been given ... 'retired time' when I can do mostly whatever I want. I love all that. You don't get to 69 without knowing that some folks never get that gift.
But there is a hate side to this equation. I hate that my future time can be counted in mostly years and not in many decades. I hate that at 69 I don't have 69 more years ahead of me. In fact, in just one small decade I will be 79 - a time when the chances of living another decade are considerably smaller. I hate that because of time my mortal body is starting to have problems - that my 'retired time' will be shared with an aging body that has a built in obsolescence.
I need to put the skids on time - slow it down.
But how is the question.
Think, think, think ...
I've noticed that when you aren't paying attention to time, it speeds up and slips away. If you are paying attention and are more mindful of the moment - time seems to slow down. I may have read that somewhere. In truth, that is just a 'mind game' as time never slows down or speeds up - just keeps ticking away - totally irregardless of what individuals do. It is only our perception of time that may change with attention to it.
Maybe time is like a fortune of gold coins. The quantity of time or gold coins is a fixed number - unknown and different for everyone. Each minute spent is a gold nugget that cannot be replaced. How each golden minute is spent is in our control - not much else is within our control. But can that approach put the skids on time?
Maybe trying to slow down time is the wrong approach. Maybe the best way to handle time is to see it through the eyes of a dog.
 |
| My dear grand dog, Grimace who passed away this spring ... who never pondered time, who lived in the moment, who spent his golden nuggets of time making others happy. |
That face says, "This is the moment that counts, Grandma. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Just today. Now can I have that treat you are holding?"
I am still learning Grimace.
I am not as smart as you.
9 comments:
I like that you take the time to appreciate your retired time. It is pretty awesome isn't it? I will be 69 next month. My last year in this decade. I think I'll take the time to savor this year.
Time does seems to go faster the older we get! I know that is not true. It is just the same as it was when we were 20 and had so many years ahead of us. But it seems like it goes so fast !!!
I retired at 59 - early - to take care of my mom. My mom died when I was 67 - I never felt retired until she died. Her care and needs consumed my life - it was just like having a job, but there were no weekends or holidays.
In the last 2 years I have become more reflective of retirement time - especially because now that my husband is disabled and we are able to do less than planned, I have to seek out new ways of seeing my life and appreciating it.
I just had this thought. Maybe time seems to go faster because we are moving slower!! Ha!
I am so sorry for the loss of your sweet Grimace. Great name, by the way. I have long had a theory about time. At the age of two, one year is half the child's life. That can seem like an eternity! But, at the age of 60, for example, one year is 1/60 of that person's life. That makes the fraction smaller, and thus it can seem like the time goes by more quickly. You are a good person to have taken care of your mother for so long.
That time issue, I think about it a lot. I have the same thought as goodnightgram, each year is such a smaller percentage of our lives now unlike when we were very young. Making the most of the present is my goal.
I'm starting to have more and more of those thoughts about time speeding by and slipping away. I dread losing my parents; I don't like being past the halfway point. I try to focus on the eternity to come, and trust that it will be ever so much better than life here, no matter how good.
Making the most of the present ... a good goal - and one you share with Grimace. It is all the about the present.
Michelle ... maybe that is my problem with time. My religious beliefs.
I was raised in a Catholic family. Eternity was what we are supposed to be focused on. But as I have aged, my religious outlook has become more questioning and uncertain. I believe in God (how can you explain the world or the universe without God,) but I have many many questions beyond that simple belief. I get comfort from settling on the idea that I will see my mom, or my pets again in an afterlife, but I when I really think on that same topic I begin to wonder how can that be so. I guess that is where "belief" comes in. I admire the strength of your assurance that things will be better - my mom held those same beliefs. My greatest hope is that if I see her again in the afterlife - she will greet me with an "I told you so!" :-)
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