nostalgia

So. July. A new month looms around the corner and I find myself standing on a precipice being propelled ever forward as my feet scramble to gain purchase on the rocky soil. 

Remember when you were younger and time couldn’t go fast enough? You wanted school to be over, dinner to come, summer to arrive, to finally turn 8 instead of being 7 and three-quarters STILL. I would hear adults say pithy things like “Oh my, September already! Where does the time go?” and I would think “Are you kidding me? It can’t go fast enough! I have things to do tomorrow, morning can’t come fast enough let’s gooooo!”

And now I am one of them, “How is it already July?” I heard myself musing aloud yesterday as I surveyed the calendar in our office. How did this happen?

Yesterday I had a three hour conversation about life, struggles and the billions of people trying to make it. The ever-present need to move forward forward at all costs, to move on to the next thing, to attain the next goal, to achieve the next milestone. I touched on this subject a bit here, but it seems to be a recurring theme as I get more and more itchy sitting here, in the same place STILL. It’s something I discuss a lot with my friends who are searching for a partner, I stand back and look at their lives from the perspective of someone who hasn’t been single for ten years, and I say “Enjoy it. Enjoy it.” 

I look at them, these incredible, smart, funny, vibrant and accomplished women and I know, I can guarantee that they will not be single eternally. It’s simply not possible. And I know that at some point, perhaps ten years from now, they will look back at their twenties as I now look back at my teens, and think “That was fun!” And they won’t necessarily envy their former selves – because envy is the wrong word, because they have moved on and are experiencing the other side, and also because they are genuinely happy with where they are now -but they will remember that time fondly. 

So I think about my life now, where I have a great deal of flexibility even as I am stuck here and I get to have my mornings to sleep in and write, and spend my afternoons and evenings with (more often than not) delightful, intriguing and hilarious teenagers and I think to myself Enjoy it. There will be a time, perhaps ten years from now where I am frantic with children and I would sell my eye teeth for a morning to sleep in or be able to leave the house to go to work, and I will remember all of the aspects of life that now seem so difficult – the renting, the work, the money that doesn’t stretch far enough sometimes – and I’ll remember it fondly, because it’s fun. It truly is.