It's devastating how quickly time
passes. Four years was an entire college career, and here you are
wading into the ocean that long ago. I could swear we were just
there.
And what has happened since? Life,
mostly, as it does.
Shots of the horizon rarely fail to
capture my imagination. Where do the earth and sky meet? What is out
there? How do I get there?
* * *
One of my POV characters is confronted
with the reality that time passes too quickly. He is dead, but in his
notebooks he expresses disbelief at his son's having recently turned
seven despite it seeming like yesterday they were all coming home
from the hospital.
This is hardly a novel thought. It's
one I'm sure most of us have at some point. It can be haunting and
daunting if we focus on it too much, which is why most of us don't.
We jump back into the river and keep moving with life.
Our busyness, of course, doesn't slow
the process. And the next time we come up for air we are again
surprised by how much time has elapsed. This progression repeats
itself until we are done here. It's a beautiful thing that is also
tinged with sadness, or at least a longing for more.
* * *
Our finiteness is what defines us.
Well, it's one of the things that defines us. Or describes us. We
can't know where the earth and sky meet, what's out there, or how to
get there. Beautiful and sad. Like life.
So we just keep moving, holding on and
letting go at the same time. We pay attention to what we think is
important and hope we are right.
Someday we'll all look back on this and
laugh. And breathe our final breath.
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