Time doesn’t move as quickly as we think it does.
“Get Ready!”
When I was about seven years old I was the fastest kid on my block: on bike or on foot. My siblings, cousins, neighborhood friends, and I would all line up on the sidewalk ready.
“Get Set!”
I listened for that one word, you know the one that everyone pretends to say before actually saying just to throw you off.
“ Go-osh it’s cold out”
But I was patient (sometimes), and I listened carefully as to not to be fooled into an early start. “Go!”
And we soared, or at least it felt like we did. Cool wind combed through my tangled hair, blurred my sight, and pulled me forward. Adrenaline warmed my finger and excited my restless muscles. And my knees! They pushed me onward with an intensity they now envy in others. We didn’t run very far, but back then it felt as if I could run a hundred miles and back in no time. We could out run Time and enjoy the moments before it finally caught up to us.
Back then it felt as if Time would never catch up to us even after we stopped running. I Can’t pinpoint the moment Time got close enough for me to worry about losing to it. The older I get the more it feels as if Time is winning a race I forgot I was in. Right now Time and I are nearly neck and neck. It got past me and now it runs backwards with a simple, earnest, agitating question: “Are you going to let me win?”
I want to say no. I want to force my legs to propel me forward and run faster than I thought was possible. I want to break the sound barrier and find that speed where it feels as if nothing is really moving at all. And then I breathe and I think and I slow down and start to pace myself. I start running again, but slower than before. I plan and I start to follow through. In thirty microwave seconds I can clean dishes and grab syrup for my warm pancakes. I watch time and it starts to feel slower. As I watch the last of the thirty seconds walk by, I realized that Time never changed it’s pace. Time never started to speed up, I just started worrying about it, and my worry slowed me down.
