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What does this mean? How does time change the way we view life and all experiences? Does time make us more secure in the memories we have? Time is something that never stops, as the earth spins, time goes on.
We age, our dogs and cats age, our grandparents get older, and our years feel shorter. As a child, all you can think about is the next important thing. The next birthday or getting to double digits, and then when that happens, you would do anything to rewind time and go back, even for a second. To smell the grass on a warm summer day coming home from a camp you told your mom you did not want to go to. To read that book for the first time again and feel a sense of belonging within those pages. The same way you felt when you read it in your elementary school library at 11. To run around the house trying to find your mom to show her the fort you made with the neighbors, anything to make her proud. Even when you scrape your knee learning to ride that bike, all you want is for your mom to tell you it will be okay to kneel on that pavement with you and simultaneously exist in that moment. For her to be proud that you tried. Reaching into those teenage years, longing for that need to make her proud like she was that day. Since then, you have been doing everything in your power to do so. Then you remember when you went to see a movie, and all you wanted was to be her on the screen, with the long blond hair and the perfect teeth. Seeing what you wanted of yourself, the jealousy? I was never quite able to achieve it, and I experienced judgment and sorrow from that one middle school year.
Then you find yourself thanking the time that it took away from you and led you to where you are now. A senior in high school admitted to a college where you would continue this journey of how to make your mom proud. But time is ticking, and months are counting down. The goodbyes are running through your mind, and the tears swell unforgivingly. The thoughts of saying bye to the people you now call home, and the place that has taught you more than its giving subjects but how to mature on your own. Time Is taking all this away from me; why was I once thanking it?
The power of time comes from the fact that you can never take it back. Time will never stand still, no matter how intense the experiences are. It will move right past without a second thought. There is no rhyme or reason, but time is unforgiving. Then we think… what if time stood still? Would you be able to cherish these moments knowing they will last forever; would they mean anything at all? Considering all this, time gives us the power to love and last. Cherish those times you never want to end because knowing that it will be over soon makes them memorable. Remember the days of running through the sprinklers or jumping in the pool on the sweltering summer days when there was no other thought in the world in those moments? Remember it all, even now, because soon, time will make it a distant memory. Time is a trail to death, and it walks you through every moment you need to experience to grow. Time running out is a gift.
