Time is Not the Enemy
(or if it is, we can overcome)
Yesterday, I saw a young girl and recognized her at first glance as Jake’s deskmate from second grade. Except of course, Jake and this classmate are now eighteen-year-olds about to start college so this girl could not have been who I thought. The moment passed in a flash. It’s not like I really thought I had traveled back in time, but it definitely made me get all philosophical about the things people say about time (it’s a thief) and childhood (you blink, and it’s gone).
It does go by in a blink, I thought for a moment as Jake in second grade and Jake in college seemed to be standing side by side in my brain. It’s not true, though. Second grade was long! It was nine months of fractions and playground injuries, class parties, and the release of Frozen in theaters.
Time does not actually fly; it is our marking of time that’s the problem. Too often we don’t want to mark time. We can’t wait for some event or milestone to get here or be over. Before we know it, the thing we wished for has come, and the time behind it fades—including the good stuff.
This is why mamas with grown children tell you (over the sound of your toddler’s tantrum) to enjoy it while it lasts because it goes by so quickly. Meanwhile, all you can think is, “he’s two and good at it,” and this will never, ever end.
At the Valentine’s Day party in Jake’s second grade, the deskmate I was reminded of yesterday told me I must laugh all the livelong day because Jake is so funny. Then she put her chin in her hand, looked at my son, and said, “Jake, tell me a joke.”
I vividly remember this because I wrote it down—in his journal or mine, I can’t remember which at the moment. I told it on the Breakfast Club (our family email chain), and I’ve told it a million or so times over the years because it was sheer delight, and I marked it.
I’m so grateful to have that memory so when Jake’s second grade comes to mind, it’s not a complete fuzzy blank of time-thievery.
I have a whole big story to tell you one day about how I used to be a daily journaler and now not so much. Another post for that one. But I do still journal occasionally, and yesterday I journaled from a prompt I learned from another blogger—Emily P. Freeman. The prompt is:
“These are the days of...”
You write this at the top of your page and then make a list of the random, delightful, or not so delightful, things that make it into most of your days right now. The meals you love most, the movies that land with everyone in the fam—oldest to youngest—the music on repeat in the car, who’s in braces, what position we’re playing, what part we got in the play, or the reel we can’t stop quoting to each other every moment it fits.
These are the anchors that time can’t steal.
I did this yesterday, and I’m so glad because ten years from now, I will still remember what we were like today.
