Time and Time Again...

We often hear the saying, “Time waits for no man.” Like death and taxes, time offers a certainty but it also offers ambiguity. The certainty is that it will march forward and will come to an end for each of us. The uncertainty is when. Just as a child playing Hide N’ Seek calls out, “Ready or not, here I come,” so too does the end of our allotted time on earth. Time is one of life’s few constants and we, as an enlightened species, have learned how to measure its pace and have framed our existence within its constructs.

We all know this. It is one of the truths that hovers in the background of the heart and mind but does not clamor for priority the way other things do. The tragedy then is that a very important truth gets lost in the proverbial shuffle and only comes center stage when an event or realization leaves us scratching our heads and asking, “Where did the time go?”

Once again I visit one of the underpinnings of this blog: I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know and I sure as heckfire am not presenting it as eloquently as most have before me. (Bonus points to anyone who can get the ‘sure as heckfire’ reference.) This is simply a thought born out of recent experiences which have presented me with opportunities to reflect on the passing of time. Couple that with all of the “Year In Review” TV specials that litter the airwaves right about now and I have no choice but to let my mind wander on this one.

The truth of a finite life was recently hammered home for me when we visited my grandmother at Thanksgiving. In the last couple of years my trips home have become increasingly brief and infrequent and I have not been present for the quick and declining effects dementia and Alzheimer’s have had on her. In an effort to provide her with the daily care she needed, the family placed her in an assisted living facility in 2005 and given that I have not seen her since my sister’s wedding in ’04, the woman I encountered this time was not the Nana I remember; a feisty Italian woman who took not an ounce of crap from anyone. I always pitied the poor sap who invoked the Italian barrage that came out of her mouth; no doubt peppered with enough F-bombs and hexes to last for generations. A master seamstress and craftswoman, she walked a fine line creating works both impressive and downright awful. (Yes, the Malocchio will rest on me and my descendants for generations to come for speaking of my Nana in such ways but it’s true.)

Now here she was at 81, talking in what sounded like slow motion and repeatedly asking me my age and my height. (For the record I am 31 years old and 6’1” tall) Had I not been with my parents and my uncle, she probably would not have known who I was. Catching her up on my life was an exercise in futility because she remembered none of it for more than the time it took the words to come out of my mouth.

I don’t know that any of us truly saw this coming, but then again, who really does? These days I simply assume I will deteriorate in old age and I try to plan for the worst – a hedging of bets, so to speak. If I make it to death at an old age with all of my physical and mental faculties in tact, it’s gravy. If not, well at least I planned for it. And for as quickly as those thoughts come to me, they are quickly usurped by more pressing matters at hand leaving the initial concern for later because, well, I’ve got time to think about that in the future. I lose sight of the arc and my current place on it and the milestones embedded in life’s arc continually sneak up on me while I am not looking.

The fact that the milestones are a corollary to life’s finality came to me last week while at dinner with some of my close friends from high school. If my recent rummage in the attic was time’s not-so-subtle way of keeping me grounded with respect to my very humble beginnings, this dinner was its way of putting it into better context. My contemporaries shared their experiences of parenthood, being homeowners, employment, marriage, etc. They have welcomed their first or second child into the world. One couple is expecting their fourth! Over the years I have watched these events unfold and have always been moderately aware of our shared journey: the days of high school, the years of college, time spent in the mythical ‘real world’ and these early days in long trek towards an increasingly fabled land called retirement. Everything has always been ‘the next logical step.” Where I feel I have fallen short was in not viewing it all within the context I mentioned above: the arc that will someday come to an end. And since that is the case, how do I ensure I live it fully and get the most out of it?

Mix these eye-openers together and the larger picture comes into clearer focus for me: my beginnings, my eventual end, milestones realized, and the fact that other milestones lie in wait. My time on this earth, being but a breath in the span of eternity, is best spent when the choices I make are made in light of an expanded awareness of the larger picture. Does this mean I have anything more concretely figured out than when I started? Hardly.

But I will. I just need a little more time.