Except the ticking of the clock, there are constant reminders that life is ever-constant, always changing, moving.
As time marches on, I become more evident of it, more appreciative, more selective.
There was the conversation where my wife and I realized our oldest son is now the same age her youngest brother was when we met and started dating. It was a discussion about Halloween costumes and how he might not dress up this year.
That didn’t seem right, not because a sixth grader might not want to dress up – but just that we were at a point of time in his life where it was even a discussion.
Our youngest son, and youngest child, is a precocious two-year-old and loves Scooby-Doo. So did his five-year-old brother and his seven-year-old sister. And by the end of next Thursday night, all will have worn the same Scooby-Doo costume for Halloween.
Moments like this present themselves numerous times a day or week, specific and unique to all of us, but somehow still shared. That radio station playing a “classic” song that you remember as a new release. Ever look down at your phone and just get amazed that you’re even holding such a device?
Maybe it is just me.
It is within our shared recollections where we probably notice it the most. Next month marks the 50th anniversary of the death of JFK. Bob Knight just turned 72. Michael Jordan is 50.
That is when you find yourself looking around a bit more. You see the lines on your parents faces. You hear your son’s voice deepening, seemingly by day. You feel it when you first wake up in the morning, with every joint popping as you slowly get out of bed.
And you wonder, where is the time going? Like a dream, memories mount over time, but jumble together into a haze. When your five-year-old puts on a pair of cowboy boots, you recall the ones you donned in 1985. You think of the grandfather who gave them to you and how long it’s been since his passing. Memories take form in Instagram-like filters. I can see my childhood house, but the color looks like an old, not fully developed Polaroid.
So we shake our heads, and simply ponder life for a bit. Where did the time go?
So we shake our heads, and simply ponder life for a bit. Where did the time go?
The answer is simple.
Where it’s always gone, at the same exact pace it’s always moved.
Where it’s always gone, at the same exact pace it’s always moved.
And you realize: this is life. Just let it sink in for a fleeting moment.
Life is watching your wife play a superhero, building a business out of motivation and passion, while multitasking 402 everyday things like homework, practice, laundry, groceries and random tasks that each day bring. Life is finding the time to steal a kiss hello or goodbye. Life is off to the races, happening in one hundred different places.
It’s hearing your mother cry as she struggles with the toll that Alzheimer’s has taken on your grandmother. Life is being speechless, because there are no words. It is fear that you won’t know what to say the next time you see her. Or if she’ll remember you at all.
Life is seeing your child learn to read, your entire family bow their heads in prayer and read a passage from the Bible each night. It’s hearing a teacher tell you your son has been kind and compassionate, taking time at recess and in class to spend it with children who have autism and being overcome with busting pride to the point of tears.
It’s the crisp air of fall, of picking pumpkins and baking seeds. It’s wrapping presents for your kids and playing Santa. Life is everything happening to you and around you. And it can be overwhelming trying to figure out a place in it, or how everything is effected and affected by every decision, no matter how small, that you make.
Life will go on, as it always has, at the same speed it always does.
It’s the crisp air of fall, of picking pumpkins and baking seeds. It’s wrapping presents for your kids and playing Santa. Life is everything happening to you and around you. And it can be overwhelming trying to figure out a place in it, or how everything is effected and affected by every decision, no matter how small, that you make.
Life will go on, as it always has, at the same speed it always does.
As the popular quote goes, when it’s over, it isn’t the dates and years of birth and death that matter. It’s that little dash in between.
That dash is life for not just you, but for everyone else in your particular life.
That dash is every Sunday morning making pancakes, every night one or all of your children end up in your bed. It’s late nights watching baseball games and sitting in traffic for 45 minutes to get to work. It’s summer vacations as a kid, break-ups and make-ups. It’s bad decisions and a clean slate.
That dash represents every breakthrough, every smile, every tear. Every moment of anxiety, of dread, of panic, of laughter you’ll ever have. The good and the bad, the friends you have and the ones who’ve fallen out of touch.
That dash represents every breakthrough, every smile, every tear. Every moment of anxiety, of dread, of panic, of laughter you’ll ever have. The good and the bad, the friends you have and the ones who’ve fallen out of touch.
Because when everyone sees that dash, it will inevitably invoke some memory or meaning. And we are remembered not for the hours worked or the production of our days, but considerably more for how we made everyone in our life feel.
Life is emotion – and in some cases, lack thereof. And that dash represents every time you smiled at someone who frowned. Every time you called and just left a quick “thinking of you” message for a friend.
The dash is flowers for no reason, an extra hug and kiss goodbye, every “great job, I’m proud of you” spoken to eyes searching for approval. It’s held doors, holding hands, making time when you really believed there wasn’t. It’s leaving a little extra tip at dinner, going ahead and having the ice cream. It’s the extra mile you ran to get rid of the ice cream so you could be around longer.
Time stops for no one. But the truth is that realization should bring some sense of comfort, make it easier, not harder. We can’t get any of this moment back. So worrying about what cannot be controlled, which is everything that happened to this point, is fruitless. It cannot be changed.
And it means that the future, which hasn’t happened yet, cannot really be controlled. So that deadline at work, while important, in proper perspective, is just a blip. There will be another. And another.
And it means that the future, which hasn’t happened yet, cannot really be controlled. So that deadline at work, while important, in proper perspective, is just a blip. There will be another. And another.
Thus, your life, your dash, becomes more about how you choose to spend it and the manner in which you spend it. Because it will be spent. This moment right now is the only thing that matters.
Life is fickle, and it doesn’t promise answers or reasons. The more tightly we squeeze it, the less grip we have.
So ease up. Take the time to take your time. Laugh, smile, cry, learn, love. Live your dash and make sure your dash holds as much meaning as it possibly can.
If there were ever a time to embrace, engage and just be you, well, the here and now is better than never. Everything is both starting and ending simultaneously.
Find that little dash in between the beginning and end of everything, because in that moment, that is where life happens.
Time can do everything but turn back, meaning we never get another chance to be in this moment. Don’t trap yourself in the past or engage solely in planning for the future.
Because now is where you are, and if you waste it in the before and after, you miss what is.
Life.
Life.
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