Time Flies
Last week my twelve-year-old son Paul says to me, “Wow, I can’t believe it’s not December yet.” My first response was as Factual Dad, “Paul, you haven’t even been in school a month….it can’t be December.” This fact only aggravated Paul further, but I could stop laughing and smiling about it for days. Paul uttered his disbelief in earnest. Time goes so slowly for him….for all kids….for all little people who still feel the texture of time as it passes, like wool pulling across one’s skin.
Remember how a three-hour car ride felt like forever or waiting to open presents or for Saturday morning cartoons . Or, of course, the childhood definition of pain: waiting for Church to end.
What happened? I seem only to blink now and two weeks have passed. I put off cleaning my closet on a Saturday and suddenly six weeks have slid by. Is it really time to pay bills again?
Aging and the acceleration of time is the damnedest thing. I am not sure how it happens, but I have a mind-body related theory. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be me. As more and more of our awareness becomes dominated by the stressors of modern living, as we consequently feel less with our bodies, our experience of time speeds up. The aging process reinforces this truth. We feel less in our bodies and are left with more and more ungrounded mental awareness. Without the tangible textured sensation of time playing against our bodies, our experience of time accelerates
I love a three-hour car ride now. Time alone, with nothing to do but drive. That feels like a vacation. I love Paul’s disbelief because I have it but just the opposite: uneventful time is like drinking a perfect glass of water.