The Passing of Time

Time passes so strangely. Days pass rapidly, full of motion, yet leaving me feeling like nothing is getting done. Weeks move slowly while whole months seem to disappear, swallowed up by hungry ghosts.

I am feeling my age more with each passing season. It seems that the sand is running through the hourglass faster now, with more of it piled up down below than up above. I am left wondering what will I do with the grains remaining? How will I use them wisely?

I feel the weight of great sorrows yet to come pressing down. The loss of loved ones and diminished physical and perhaps mental faculties are a gift time will bring that no one can refuse. How will I accept them when they arrive?

But joy and wonder also yet to come. What new places are waiting just over the horizon? Who might I meet the next time I break down along the roadside? What pearls of wisdom still lie hidden below the surface one day to be revealed?

As I recognize the passing of time, I see more clearly the beauty in the everyday. I relish the simple pleasure of waking up and sitting down with a steaming cup of coffee to record the meanderings of my mind. I see the wonder in the changing shadows as the sun arcs from dawn till dust. I experience peace in the feel of air moving across my skin. I look for moments of awe in even the darkest of hours.

My mind can blind me from these wonders, clouding my perception with anxieties and insecurities. Lost in the soap opera of the brain, I become locked into its glowing screen, missing the majesty of the clouds morphing overhead, the laugh of a child running down the street, or the gentle touch of a loved one.

My wish is to be awake as I make my journey through time. To be present for the joys and sorrows yet to come, accepting both as equal partners in the dance of life. I want to not get lost in the unreality television show of my mind, wasting precious moments on worries that may never come to fruition while the light paints a beautiful portrait I am too distracted to notice. I want to jump in the ocean every time there is an opportunity for no other reason than because I can. I want to embrace the life that is left in me and ride the passage of time like a surfer caught in the moment of uncertainty and ecstasy as a wave picks him up and moves him inexorably forward into the unknown.

Based on a journal entry first written on 2.3.13