On Time and T-ball 4/3/2022

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

I have done all I could do to keep the tone of this week’s blog from being wistful but for whatever reason I cannot seem to shake it.  Something seems to have brought on this mindset that falls somewhere in the grey area between melancholy and nostalgia.  I know. I know.  Such topics may be a turn off to some people. Honestly, I am not even sure if I am a fan but no matter what other routes I tried to take, the character of this writing, as I jotted down notes and tried to pull ideas out of the woodworks, remained the same. It seemed to be almost the only thread that ran through all the ideas that I came up with that kept all my thoughts strung together.  Without this mood settling over every concept, I am not sure how well all the content that spilled from my brain would make much sense when put together.  So today, the goal is coherence and that I can give you something worth reading.

I think it begins with the reoccurring surprise.  Yes, you read that correctly and the phrase sounding so ridiculous is the whole point. I don’t really understand how we are forever caught off guard by something that happens regularly. At this time of year, it is the time change.  Moving forward an hour, which if you ask for my and many people’s opinion is the epitome of ludicrosity and hopefully setting clocks forward and back in the spring and fall will be a thing of the past in the very near future.  But it is something that seems to sneak up upon us every year.  Don’t we adjust our clocks every fall and spring?  How is it that every year it is so unexpected? Still, whether we agree with the changing of the clocks (which I am not sure I have found anyone that did), knowing how the light and dark are about to change to us always seem to hammer home the fact the seasons are yet again on the move.  The additional darkness of winter is truly on its way out and the sun will clearly demonstrate that the pages of the calendar are forever turning and life will most assuredly not be staying the same.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a person that happily embraces the chill and all things snuggly or if you’re a sun-seeker who would much prefer to be minimally clothed near a body of water.  Your preferences don’t matter because whatever season you call beloved will race on with or without your relishing of such. And I think most of us have seen that the older we get the faster things move and when whatever time you think of the most fondly begins to wane, I, and maybe some of you, can’t help but feel like a little piece of you fades away with it.  And I suppose to feel that way is appropriate.  The winter of this past year is gone and that winter will never happen again. There will be others yes, but it won’t be that specific one and whatever treasures it held fade away like the stars at the new coming dawn.

The advancement of time and the fleeting nature of significant moments seem to be overwhelmingly surrounding me. There are just so many as of late. For instance, only a few hours before writing this I had the joy and privilege of watching my daughter play her very first T-ball game. For any of you who have ever had the experience of watching a gaggle of 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds attempting to play an organized sport, many of them for the very first time, you know the level of unbridled entertainment to which I refer.  There are wrestling matches for the ball amongst teams of outfielders, there were runs around the bases that never quite made it to bases or even in the vicinity. There were even those who once they made it home just felt so inclined to keep going around yet again. I still say we should have gotten extra points for those extra trips, but I digress.  As I watched tiny little uniforms run and jump and fall and swing, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad.  She may play ball again. She may fall madly in love with it, and it become something we do for years to come. But this time, this first game, this first taste of playing with a team as a clueless adorable wee kid, this is it. It is this moment and this moment, just like the winter that just bid us farewell, that is so quickly and irreparably gone.  There may be similar times, maybe more T-ball, maybe softball and who knows what else. But today becomes yesterday so quickly. 

I stood there watching a flurry of kids and parents on a baseball field in what, in the grand scheme of things, was not particularly significant, but the weight of how momentary all of this was filled the atmosphere for me like the clouds that crowded the sky insisting the sun would stay hidden.  We change our clocks, and a season is done. Children grow up, and an entire volume of memories comes to a close.  I am an innate worrier, constantly anxious about tomorrow’s challenges. How many of these fleeting moments am I losing by looking ahead and not milking the present for all it’s worth?  So don’t hold it against me that today I write thinking of change and loss. I am also doing my best to think of how I can hang on to and treasure what I am blessed enough to have the chance to experience.  It always seemed so trite, the old saying, “it’s a gift that is why it is called the present”. I suppose sometimes the adages that are trite are repeated so often because they are in fact, just that true.