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I have come to believe that everyone has their own unique way of marking the passage of time. In fact, the ways we mark time actually change as we grow older. Take my life for example. When I was a kid, time almost seemed to run in reverse. It seemed I would never be old enough to do this or that. I could not wait for my next birthday or Christmas.
Even in school I tried to race as fast as I could. Self-paced learning was my friend, and so with the aid of the SRA Reading program, I was at a high school grade reading level by the fifth grade. I always wanted what was coming next, sometimes sacrificing the things I should have enjoyed most; including a year of my childhood.
The year we moved to North Carolina was a year of opportunity and loss (although I did not recognize the loss until much later in life). We had moved in the spring, right at the start of the fourth quarter of my eighth grade year. I remember sitting in the guidance counselor’s office at my new school, excited about a fresh start, but apprehensive all the same. A girl about my age came in with a stack of books under her arm. I said to my mom, “Hey, they use the same books we used in Florida.” To which the guidance councilor replied, “I think we may have a problem.”
The problem we discovered was that the girl carrying the books was in the ninth grade, not the eighth. Apparently at that time, the schools in North Carolina were a little behind the schools in Florida as far as curriculum went. So, with a little reluctance from my parents, I found myself catapulted ahead in time by a full year. Little did I know that time is a one way street. You can go forward, but you can never go back.
Now, in many ways this was okay. My dream of getting to high school and college more quickly was being fulfilled. I started dating a year earlier than my peers. Heck, my peers were now a year older than me; including the girls. I learned about life faster, but in hindsight I do not think I learned about it better. And as a man heading towards mid-life, if I had the opportunity to do it over again, I think I would have opted for taking it a little bit slower. Some things in life are there to be savored, not gulped down quickly like a meal at a fast food joint.
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Fast forward three years and the X’s on the calendar started marking the days to the prom and the end of high school. Planning for the future became more important than living each day. The girl I was dating at the time even spoke of post college nuptials. The madness of graduation was upon us and time was meaningless.
Even during our graduation ceremony we marked time. Time to enter the hall. Time to wait for the speeches. Time to wait for my name to be called (mine was always in the middle, equal wait on both sides of the alphabet). Time to turn the tassel. And then it was over. The first quarter of my life had come to an end; another milestone along the road.
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There are moments in my life I know that time has actually stopped, or at least my perception of time has paused for an instant. I had one of these moments a few months later when I found myself sitting at a football stadium in West Point, New York, kissing and hugging my mom, dad and girlfriend goodbye as I started plebe year at the US Military Academy. I remember looking at them that last time and thinking this is it. This is the beginning of my life.
I have felt those pauses on other rare occasions. Performing on stage as Professor Harold Hill to a standing ovation. The first time I kissed my wife on a bench in front of her dorm. My wedding day when I said, “I do.” The first time I held each of my children. The cold grasp of death as my insides exploded. Each goal or basket or point scored by my kids. The quiet seconds holding the ones I love dearest to me.
Still life with meaning might be the way a painter would describe these instances. Life, however, is anything but still. There is vibrancy and motion on the canvas. The images are more like a clip than a frame - a movie not a photograph.
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At the Academy we measured time in “butt days.” The Firsties (seniors) asked us each morning, noon and night, “How many days.” To which we would reply, “There are 256 (or whatever number of days remained until their graduation day) and a butt days, sir.” The butt was for the portion of that very day the request was made. Days were important at the Academy, because each day was one day closer to freedom, or so we thought.
When I was a kid, freedom seemed like a great thing to find; freedom to do what I want, when I wanted. I couldn’t wait to be old enough to be free. Naïve little child, I did not realize how free I actually was. This same naïvety followed me from the Academy to design school. College life at the university was the most liberating time of my life, and yet my quest was to get through it as quickly as possible to be able start my career; to reach my next marker. In those few short years, I overlooked the facts that freedom comes from independence, and that independence disappears once you have dependents. And, once you have dependents, you realize that independence is a long time away.
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And so it was on the fourth year of my Tale of Two Cities that I found myself acutely aware of how much time was passing by. This was my oldest daughter’s senior year of high school. Her milestones were laid out before her and they were racing towards me at 100 miles per hour. Senior pictures, invitations, college planning sessions, applications, the senior play, the senior prom, culminating at graduation; STOP!
Ironically, at the time in her life when she wanted time to go by faster, I wished it would slow down. Echoes of my words my parents used reverberated in my mind. “Slow down.” “Enjoy the moment.” “You’ll be old enough before you know it.” It was then I realized there was still time; not much, but enough. If I could somehow decelerate, slow down and watch the scenery instead of just seeing the signs go by we might be able to enjoy this time instead of regret its passing.
And so it was that as my daughter raced ahead, I looked for off ramps that would give us more time. I wanted time to be a part of her life’s journey where in the years past we only intersected on occasion. A selfish time to mark the inches and the miles before our roads diverge on the path to her future.
- Ken
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