Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Where does the time go?

By:  Kristi Hartman


I've spent the last few days pouring over the thousands of pictures I have saved in iPhoto, working on a baby book for my daughter.  It is long overdue, by about oh, I don't know, eight years. Oops! Looks like time got away from me there.  

I don't know what is prompting this sudden urge to document and record my family history, but when I step away from the computer after staring at all those images, I blink my eyes for the first time in 2 hours and feel a mixed bag of emotions.
It's fun to look back on things that happened a few years ago, and see how much has changed.  But it's also confusing to the mind because you look at an event and think, "That happened five years ago?  It feels like it's only been a few months!"  

Where does the time go? 

With daylight savings time just recently tearing it's ruthless 60 minutes away from us, and throwing all of us Moms into a whack for a few days, all of this has got me thinking.
                     How do I hold onto something that was never mine to begin with?  
Time doesn't belong to me, or to any of us.  It's just out there, governing our days, and dictating when and for how long we live our lives.  The only thing we have any control over is how we choose to spend these precious minutes we are given each day.

When I look back on the pictures of my kids, sometimes my heart starts to mourn because I feel like things are changing too quickly for me.  The kids are growing and changing, and there's nothing I can do about it.  I wish I could grasp moments and hold onto them tightly, but I know that won't work.  It would be like trying to squeeze a fistful of sand in my palm.  It would all keep moving anyway.

In an effort to accept the lack of control I have over time and how quickly it gets away from us, I think it's important to remember how delicate it is, and how best to use it.  Those things we have been putting off for months or years, that we know need to get done, we should do them.  
Those things we know we should say to those we love, we should just say them.
That book that is constantly lurking under the surface of your creative consciousness, you should write it, and finish it.


 Time will pass anyway, so what do you have to lose?


3 comments:

  1. Well said! The only way I hold on to time is by living in the moment. I try to take a moment or two from each day and just say, “This. This right here. Right now. I cherish this.” And I just experience it for a minute before the moment passes.

    That’s one thing I love about writing- how I can use words to capture those moments each day and hold onto them in a way I can’t always do with photographs. :-)

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  2. When we are young there seems to be all the time in the world as we get older the time feels like it is running out and before we know it we are out of time

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  3. This is exactly how I've been feeling lately. My oldest is 18yrs old and about to graduate high school! This is a very scary time for me. Where did the time go? Did I use that time to teach her enough? Did I tell her I love her often enough?
    I heard someone once say that you can't make time, you can only protect it. So as the time grows closer for her to leave the nest, I'm making an effort to protect more family time!

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