Childhood is fleeting
tick, tick, tick
Captain Alpha: “I can’t wait to go back to school.”
Captain Alpha is wishing the summer away because he is missing his school friends. He does love school – he was actually sad on the last day.
Hearing him say that brought back one of my own memories:
I was sitting on the back steps of my house in the scorching heat of a July afternoon. I remember being miserable and hot and saying, “I can’t wait for winter.”
Then I realized that I had repeated that sentiment throughout my childhood:
“I can’t wait until… I am one of the big kids…. “
[tick, tick, tick - I climbed.]
“…I’m in junior high…high school…I can drive a car…”
[tick, tick, tick – I slowly climbed higher.]
“…I graduate….go to university….get a job.”
[tick, tick, tick – I slowly inched higher still.]
“…I get engaged…get married…have a baby…”
[tick...tick...]
“…the baby is born.”
[TICK]
I stopped climbing.
Suddenly I am falling, falling, too fast to stop.
The roller coaster is taking me with it.
When I became a mother, the ride changed. Time changed.
It was no longer the roller coaster, slowing creeping up an incline… but a vehicle out of my control, full of chills, thrills, peaks and valleys. I am powerless against it.
Careening around corners, I am time’s passenger.
Yet, I struggle to hold it, grasp it. Stop it.
I can’t.
Because as much I remember feeling that a summer would never end, a school year would never pass, a birthday would never arrive… It did.
They all did.
Captain Alpha: I can’t wait to go back to school.
Me: Don’t worry, honey. You’ll be back in school with your friends before you know it.
Before you know it.
I don’t have kids yet, but I feel like time flies faster every day.
I really noticed it after the birth of my first little guy. Sometimes it feels like everything is on fast-forward. So fast.