As the Years Fly By

I don't remember getting old. What I do remember is the journey here.

Little things crop up in my memory every once in a while that make it evident that while I may not really be old, I've taken a long time to get where and when I am. For instance, the other day when I mentioned to my friend that this May will mark the thirtieth anniversary of my high school graduation, she smiled, chuckled, and said, "Oh. That's when I was two." Long journey for me, not so long for her.

When I think about my children, I can remember holding them in my arms for the first time, changing their diapers, feeding and caring for them, watching them take their first hesitant steps, and the like. Now my eldest is twenty-six with two growing children of their own; my second eldest is a year from graduation, driving everywhere, and holding down a job; and my youngest is a high-school letterman, only months from getting his driver's license, and about to celebrate his two-year anniversary with his girlfriend.

Where does the time go? Are there only so many minutes in the day that we can spend making memories? Are the highs and lows all that remain at the end of the road? And if so, why don't we take more time to make more memories? Is it because when all is said and done, memories are as painful as they are poignant, as fleeting as the time spent making them?

What all this boils down to is this: For me, life is just too damn short! I don't want to live to be seventy or eighty and have only my memories to sustain me in the end. I want to continue to make memories, those bright shiny coins that we are paid for living a rich life.

I just want more time. I look back over the last few days, and I see so much time wasted doing things that really don't matter a helluva lot in the grand scheme of my life. But the daily grind sometimes makes it all seem so pointless, so useless, that coming up with the energy to do something real seems impossible.

As a sidenote to this: I guess part of me longs for immortality. That being said, and given the apparent improbability of that happening, the only alternative is for me to become embedded in the memories of others. Let me become the thoughts that make them smile occasionally; let me be the person they think of and heave a deep sigh; let me be the one who did something so significant in someone's life that they'll never forget me.

Tick tock. Tick tock. There goes another wasted minute, and here I am moaning about it to whoever reads this.

Make a memory. Make a difference.

Like "Tuck" said in Tuck Everlasting, "Don't fear death. Rather, fear the un-lived life."

And so it goes...