I am one of the world's many unknown clocks.

Wound to a point, every second that passes is mine to spend. I am not on a loan. I do not have a way to save time for later or borrow time from another. I do not even know how many minutes I have to spend. And unfortunately enough, the moments I have to use often slip through my fingers like running water. I let them.

I don't want to let them.

There is no way I can pause time, no way I can steal more of it from some controlled storage center. So if these moments are the ones I have, I want to dedicate precious time to deciding what to do with them. To making them count and not squandering them on some feeble pastime or shameful regret.

I want to devote time to family before that time is gone. Recently, I was lucky enough to spend Christmas with my grandparents, hear their stories and learn about their lives. My amazing mother reminded me that these stories and this time is priceless. Once it's gone, I can't get it back. I can't summon the memories out of thin air, I didn't live them. But I honor my grandparents by learning their lives and remembering their lessons. I cherish them by taking the time to sit by their sides, and though I will always owe them indescribably more, the least I can do is take the time to be with them. This precious, priceless time I have to be with them. To be with my parents. To be with my siblings. To be with my extended family. To treasure the traditions I had been taught and etch them into my mind so I can pass them along, come what may.

I don't want to be frozen by times of stress and cease to move forward. As I have been known to say, I am a tumbleweed of a human being. Considering that I am also one of the world's unknown clocks, the flightiness of my nature unsurprisingly tends to get the battered gears in my head stuck stiff. When I become stressed, I tend to retreat back into myself, into my own head, pushing aside everything else and cocooning myself into blankets like a frightened child. Instead of taking precious time I waste precious time ignoring the work that could free me from my freeze and choosing to push further and further behind. Because "Out of sight, out of mind," right? But I can't believe that anymore. It was never true to begin with. With what time I have, I want to sharpen my willpower, train my self-control, and keep stress from holding the reins of my brain any longer.

I want to ignore fear and take every opportunity I'm granted. When I was young, my stubborn mess of a self obstinately refused to play Candyland with my brother for the longest time. My reasoning was that if I didn't play the game, I couldn't possibly lose. My mistake was believing that if I didn't play the game, I had already won. A distinct lack of failure is not success and is arguably definitively the opposite. If I'm too fearful to risk the thought of failure in the hopes of success, how on earth will I move forward from where I am now? I'll stay a mess of a misinformed college kid hoping to accidentally walk into chance and success. If I want opportunity, a shot at my dreams, a chance for what I want or the chance to find out I want something different, I will have to take the steps to seize it myself. No one can live my life for me. No one can take these minutes that are mine. If I waste them, I've already lost.

I don't want to wallow in anxiety for what comes next or what came before. I can't see or guarantee a future for myself - no one can. The most unrelenting promises I have made for the future are the ones that have bitten me back the hardest. If I worry about what will come next, I'll spend my life in this constant, paranoid state of flinching every time I get hit with the unknown. And worse, if I spend my life trapped in a cycle of "what-ifs" based on events of the past, I'll never be able to make a decision for fear of the consequences. What-ifs are a trap lying in wait for the present. They rob you of minutes spent thinking what would have gone differently if you had made a different decision. But here's the thing. Once a decision is made, there is no going back. While it might become clear with time that a certain choice was better than the one that was made, that will not change what happened. We have one life to lead and an invaluable, finite number of minutes to spend living it. I can't turn back time. We all know I'm not Cher. Instead of worrying over the choices I have made in the past and allowing that fear to consume me, I want to learn from the mistakes I will inevitably make in every moment and let them lead me towards better choices in the future. Choices of which I can be truly proud.

I want to say how I feel before the chance disappears. There are a lot of things that I want to say. Things that make me nervous of what the response will be. Things I am unsure will be "right" for the person I want to hear them. There are opportunities to say little truths of mine that I let pass because for some reason silence is more comfortable. There are moments that seem to scream for something to be said and as I overthink my response, trying to make every word as perfect as I impossibly think I can, the scream dies out and the moment has passed. But who gave me the right to decide when I can or cannot be honest? Who told me I could pick and choose what I want to state as my beliefs in order to fit the bill of someone else's stance? Who said that fear was an adequate reason for shying away from the honesty in myself that I ask for in other people? Words are terrifyingly powerful, that much cannot be denied, but they are a power that was meant to be utilized, not ignored. If I can't summon the courage to speak my mind, what I really think, with even the people I care about, how can I ask the same of them? And not only that, if I am constantly lying in act or omission, how can I ever believe that what anyone else tells me is true?

I don't have time to lie to myself and to others. I don't have time to give into hiding the way I feel or the beliefs I hold dear just because fear is telling me the truth can wait for another day. I cannot be anyone other than myself in this life I've been given to lead. Why waste time trying to be? I want to use my time wisely. I don't know how much of it I have, and I can't give any up thinking how I might've wasted it so far. I can only try to lead a life worth living, savoring every second of the time I've been gifted.

I'm not going to wait anymore.