Watching the Clock 12/13/2020

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Is it just me, or does anyone else remember when it used to take roughly four years to get to this time every year?  Maybe it was just the youthful imagination but I am quite certain that it took multiple years for us to get to the last pages of the calendar when I was young. Surely, you all remember the waiting for what seemed like ages for Christmas to come.  But then again, I guess it seemed like everything took longer back then. I think we can all remember that waiting for any special event that we were excited about meant that the time span of literally forever spread out in front of us. The thing we wanted most was not even a speck on the horizon. Time purposefully drug its feet seemingly to mock us then. The question I suppose I cannot seem to answer is, at what point of adulthood (or maybe it was just before) did all this change? When was it that suddenly every fleeting moment began to vanish as soon as you caught sight of it? Surely this isn’t just an occurrence in my life? Is there a moment once adulthood comes into view that there is an actual rip in the time-space continuum at which point the seconds, days or even years completely change format? Assuming I am not the only person to experience this phenomenon, and I feel comfortable to say I am not having heard enough people complain of similar peculiarities, today I want to take a look at this perplexing anomaly.

Let’s start with the very foundational memories. I am quite certain that the roughly eight-ish hours of the school day from the very tender kindergarten years all the way up until the senior cap and gown had a decade shoved into each of them. It was a struggle to merely survive until recess.  Sadly, in those latter years we only had lunch to serve as beacon of hope, no such luck as a recess or, wonder of wonders, a nap.  I do realize many may have participated in unauthorized naps during class on occasion in your latter school years. I shan’t judge you for such things. It was a matter of survival and endurance until the distant end of the day. You did what you had to. So many times I remember watching the clock, especially in any class involving math (shudder), and seeing that its hands were not moving or quite possibly were moving backwards.  And let’s not even discuss the months it took to get to the weekend! Monday through Friday had at least 3 weeks’ worth of drudgery until the beloved weekend arrived. Which as I am noticing, weekends and vacations seem to be some of the few times back then (and really even now) that didn’t tick by at the speed of a crippled snail. In molasses. In January.

Then comes the mysterious and strange years from puberty on in to the teenage years. While the weekends were still always too far away suddenly it wasn’t just the hours and days that we wanted gone, it was years. We were never happy with the age we were. We wanted to hit thirteen and be an actual teenager. From what I remember of that age, oh the humanity, that was a ridiculous thing to wish for.  Then we wanted to be sixteen because of course we all needed the full freedom and the license that came with it.  I suppose I get that. Driving did open up whole new worlds. True, on occasion, especially if you lived in a small town, those new worlds were simply driving from one end of town to the other or eventually landing in the parking lot that other teenagers had deemed the socializing spot of choice.  But even that wasn’t enough. We all then wanted to be eighteen when apparently we were suddenly to have imparted into our brain all the wisdom of adulthood. I’m not sure about any of my readers but that most assuredly didn’t happen to me or any other eighteen year olds I am familiar with. They may be able to vote in this country and serve in the military but wisdom-filled adults they most certainly are not. And unfortunately most do not become aware of their lack of reason and practicality until far later in years at which time they have invariably learned such things the hard way. I type this nodding with personal understanding quickly followed by shaking my head in first hand wonder of the stupidity.

Adulthood causes a change in us though. Now time is cursed with the exact opposite predicament. The calendar pages flutter by in a whir. What I wouldn’t give to slow time down just a bit. Certainly there are moments that I would be alright with the sands moseying through the hourglass at a faster rate (cough pandemics cough) but for the most part time in adulthood is a mirage. Significant moments come and go with the speed of a cheetah with turbo boosters. You blink and moments are simply gone. Entire decades of our lives pass us by and we can only recall glimpses. Our children don’t make this any better. If you have them you know that they are born and suddenly they are going to school and depending upon what second of the quickly ticking clock you are personally on, they may already have children of their own. There is no way you can convince me that time is the same concept as it was in my childhood.  Massive blocks of time just quietly slip away while as a kid I could barely endure the endless thirty minutes until my second favorite cartoon ended so my favorite could come on.

It is probably the most ephemeral of resources and yet very possibly the most precious we have. We’ve all wished it away at times and I daresay it’s safe to assert we have all wasted it on occasion.  But now as I am square in the middle of adulthood (literally in the middle of my life; I am still undecided if I shall have a crisis yet or not) I can think of so many moments that I wish I had back.  How often are we so busy looking forward to some event or goal in the future that we forget to pay attention to the present? Even worse, we stand looking back over the past that is chapter already written with the ink dry. I know I am terribly guilty of both. The next time I find myself looking ahead to the future or even more ridiculously, focusing on the unchangeable past, I am going to do my best to remind myself that the present is all we really and truly have. We can’t go back and change days gone by and we are certainly unable to move into the unknown before us. I want to try to hold on to each moment. It is where I truly am and the only place where I can genuinely, with the proper attitude and effort, change everything.