A Touch of Timelessness

Someone once told me, when I was the ripe old age of eight, that the older you get, the quicker time goes by. They should have saved their breath. How could I, in the endless days of my youth, even begin to understand what that meant? Especially when the adage of the time was that time flies when you're having fun and most of the adults I knew didn't appear to be having very much of that. They might as well have told me that I wasn't, in fact, going to live forever. When you're a kid, both facts (because I would certainly now call the first point a fact) are equally unbelievable.

As a child, it seemed nothing ever came fast enough, especially when I was anticipating some particular day or event, such as my birthday or the first day of school. In the same token, the things I most loathed or dreaded took for...ev...er (in the words of one of my favorite childhood movies). Waiting in line at the grocery store with my mom was a drag and don't even get me started about the car trips. We all know what those are like for kids.

Even now, when I find myself inadvertently passing on the wisdom of the ages to the kids I know, I laugh because I see that look in their eyes. In that moment, I know what they're thinking. It's kind of reminiscent to yeah right, Kristine. But I can't blame them, certainly. I know the look so well, not only because I am sure I gave it once myself but because every now and again, I sense that I still believe it.

Sure, I know that time goes by quicker the older you get because perspective changes and life gets busier. We quicken the pace of our lives to the speed set by a wheel in motion - one otherwise known as our world. We, as sanctified adults, join what is so aptly described as the "rat race" of life. And not to say the pursuit is always worthless, because it sometimes isn't. But when we lose our way in the endless chantings of "faster, bigger, better, more, now," I daresay we have lost much more than our way.

The days I most recognize that defiant and unbelieving look that children give at the prospect of getting old and losing time is when I am reminded to slow down and to enjoy moments. This is the art of adulthood, I believe, because here we have this gift of the very same twenty-four hours we were offered as children, and yet we are much more in control and capable of doing with it what we should and making all of it count. Unfortunately, not too many of us have mastered this art.

But I would very much like to. And I think it involves a belief that what counts is not always just doing the things that uphold the standards of our society, like working ourselves into the ground and living in isolation. I think that days filled with other-ness are sometimes the most endless. When we serve, when we commune, and even when we choose the type of solitude that fills, rather than depletes our lives - these moments, I think, are what matter and what add a touch timelessness to the day.

And I don't know about you, but I could use a touch of timelessness.