Time Flies

The clock is ticking, and we're only getting older

Before I dive into this week’s Sunday Morning Thoughts, I want to take a minute and plug the Black Ibis Social Club. This past week I was a guest on the podcast and we discussed everything from current events, Viktor Tsoi and KINO, to Eastern Orthodoxy, and I’d say we had a great time doing so. If you’re curious about any of those topics and have about three hours to spare, give it a listen! I promise it’ll be worth your while.

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Last night I went over to my aunt and uncle’s house for dinner with my parents. It wasn’t a huge function or get-together; we hadn’t planned it weeks in advance, it was more of a spur-of-the-moment thing. It was the first time I’d had any contact with them in about a year as well — mind you, we’re not estranged or anything, we’re all just super busy.

My younger cousins were also there, and I got to catch up with them a bit. It’s strange, but I was about fourteen years old when the oldest was born, and I still remember babysitting him from time to time. I remember how he used to chase me around his house with a plastic hammer and he was only about as high as my knee. Now he’s taller than I am (I’m 5’11) and he’s working as a stateside liaison for a shipping company in Geneva, Switzerland.

All told, we spent about five hours with them, shooting the breeze and talking about current events, reminiscing about friends and family no longer with us, and how much everyone has changed.

As I sat down to write this morning I realized for the first time in my almost 35 years on earth that time really is slipping away. Simply stating my age now makes me wonder where the years went between my high school graduation and when I woke up this morning. The sudden understanding that my cousins were no longer children but now able to have children themselves was baffling to me.

I think the worst thing about getting older is that your mind doesn’t have time to catch up with the flow of it. We go through our day-to-day routines and mark birthdays, holidays, anniversaries as moments in time, but we seldom truly look back until we’re decades separated from those moments. We realize too late that so much time has passed, and we thought we had more of it than we really did. The kids are grown, granddaddy’s been gone for almost eight years, and you’re no longer the 20-something with a chip on his shoulder. Now you’re closing in on 40, tired, and while there’s cause for optimism now, for the most part you were living with uncertainty about the future for a good part of that time.

Talking to my parents as well reminded me that they too were getting older. My father is battling multiple health issues; my mom has been retire for almost three years and I can see how being at home more often than not has made her a little stir-crazy. Though I don’t say anything about it, I know that there may not be as many days ahead for them as there are days behind. And truthfully? That scares me most of all.

It is, however, one reason why I’m glad we all got together last night and reconnected. I’m hopeful that maybe there’ll be more get-togethers in the future.

I know it goes without saying, but we don’t get many days here on this earth. Every day is a gift, this isn’t a new observation by any means. But one day I’ll look back on last night’s dinner and remember in vivid detail how my uncle’s German Shepherd had to grab her big squeaky toy and show it off to everyone, or how hard we all laughed at the back-and-forth banter between my oldest cousin and his dad.

We should all be so fortunate to be blessed with such things.

Until next time…