The scene around me is so familiar. The way the sun streaks through the tree just outside my window, the way they turn and dance revealing diamonds of light. The roof tops of the homes I am eye level with, the smell of the asphalt rising from the heat of the sun, the sounds of the creek running behind the easement, the frogs that begin their nightly serenade. My nephews are playing outside the window and the strangest sense of de ja vu settles over me, as if I am watching myself right from outside my own body.
What is about places that are so home that scare and comfort at the same time? If there is anything I have learned in the last few months it has been how much I despise change and love stability, but at the same time can't sit still for too long. I hate to move, but fear sitting still.
Time has the strangest ability to rush and slow you down. I have been dwelling on the blessings lately. The quiet of my apartment, the cold of the winter, the feeling of walking instead of driving. Studying a subject most people think they understand, but even those that teach it still have a hard time grasping the in's and out's. I sit and treasure every moment, wanting to infinitely ponder the majesty of redemption.
And as I linger on thoughts of pleasure, the pain of distance rings its call for notice and all of the sudden I hate how slow the clock ticks and how every day seems longer than the day before and all I long for is the safety I know in the arms of the one I love.
As I continue to stare out the window and let the feeling of nostalgia take over and continue to sway me too and fro, I am reminded of being ten years old and calling for ten more minutes before I had to come in for dinner and homework. Whining and garnering a successful sigh from my mother, it would seem that it had only been ten seconds before she was back out again. Summer was always too far away and never lasted long enough. I needed to be 16 to drive and 18 to graduate and time took too long; that is until I was 16 driving around aimlessly with my best friend, Smashing Pumpkins, Blink 182 and every other best summer song ever.
Oh how some things never change. But even with that sense of irony still working its way through the atmosphere, I realize without realizing that I realized it, I hold on to the future with a death grip if only out of fear that if I don't keep looking forward, time will steal what I do have, and I will look around only to realize that I am no longer the child waiting for tomorrow, but the adult with nothing to show for today. Time is a sneaky bastard that way. The moment you think you have some of it, it slips away as if it's got a pair of running shoes and you are in heals. Other times there is a grand moment you have been waiting and working your whole life for, and it will never come.
The hard part is harnessing that time with a grip that respects the power of today and inevitability of tomorrow. For me, the power comes in the power of redemption. Though time can't be turned around and minutes can't be given back, but part of redemption is the awareness of time. Like the force of gravity is respected after a fall, a healthy understanding of the linear motion of life becomes essential.
It becomes one of the ten talents handed out by the master. How can it be multiplied? Not through serums or workouts to regain youth, but maybe by riding the momentum of the wave of time. A wasted moment is worse than a wasted dollar. A dollar can be earned again, but time, time can not be earned back. I guess the real question is, what does it look like for each individual to not waste their talent? For just as each pair of shoes will fit every individual separately, there will be a different fit of time for anyone at any given moment of... well, time.
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