Flying At the Speed of Time...

.

Life is short... days that once drifted languidly by, revealing beauty and secrets and wisdom at a leisurely pace, now speed like a freight train. Whistle blowing and wheels clacking... and I just try to hold on. Some days I realize I don't have a seat, or even a ticket... I'm just hanging onto the outside of the train like some cartoon character, legs trailing out behind me. I know you have all felt like this.

.

And it's not that I am too busy. This has been the most relaxing page my story has come upon in ages. Leisure, however briefly, is my middle name. :)

.

But you know what I'm talking about. Remember summer days that spent themselves frugally, slowly, every moment a drop of cool water? Remember school classes that seemed endless? A sorrowful glance at the clock showed just two minutes had crawled past since the previous glance (yet you couldn't NOT look, even knowing what that surreptitious peek would reveal). Remember the first day of Christmas vacation, and knowing you had half a month before any formatted and regimented routine would box you in again? Or summer... goodness, an oasis in front of you! A vast expanse; not a meadow, but a whole continent. A whole summer-- which, by the way, lasted nearly two and a half years back then, or so it felt. I remember. And I remember days of diapers and baths and bedtime stories (read again and again and again!!), upset tummies and sniffles and earaches, dandelion bouquets and sandbox parties... I remember when going to the mall or the grocery store was truly an excursion... the required equipment alone was daunting. Those days were full, I'd say even overly full, but passed slowly, the way a day should pass.

.

Now it seems like half a year will fly by before I've even had a chance to peer through its window. Is this just part of getting old? Because, while I am all in favor of empty nests and senior discounts and time for books or bubbles baths of my own, I think this supersonic time thing sucks. Is there someone I can talk to about this? I'd like to get it fixed.