Watching the Clock

Time is an enigma. It’s a concept that we’re so familiar with, yet it’s so hard to grasp. We watch the clock, and the time barely passes. We look down, then look back up and it’s time to leave.

Time passing with age is a particularly peculiar thing. During childhood, you go through so many changes year to year; different teachers, different sizes, different friends. Each year is a whole new milestone in itself, and that makes the previous one seem so distant. A 5 year old will tell stories about when they were little, or a 15 year old will feel nostalgic for the way life was when they were in the fifth grade. A 17 year old will feel so far removed from a 12 year old, they can’t imagine being so embarrassing anymore, because they’ve lived so many lifetimes in that time. Then one day you blink and you’ve gone from 24 to 29 without even noticing. The time is speeding past you now, and you don’t know how to slow it down. You just want to reach out and grab it and hold it there for a little while.

Having children only makes this feeling of time racing away worse. It’s taking all of these precious moments and running before we’ve even had a chance to take a mental picture. You look at your baby learning to walk, and you feel like it was just yesterday that they couldn’t even hold up their head on their own. All you can think about is how old you’ll be when they graduate, how much time you’ll have left with them when they get married or have their own children. Will the time ever slow down?

Well, I’ve been thinking about that a lot this past year as I’ve been watching my newborn grow into a toddler before my eyes with barely a chance to write it all down in a baby book. I’ve been thinking about it all day and all night for a year, and I think I’ve cracked it. All you have to do is start back over. Think about those 5 year olds and those 15 year olds. Think about when you were that age and you couldn’t wait to grow up and adulthood felt so far away. How time crept by you so slowly and you just wanted to push it ahead.

When I was little, I couldn’t picture my parents’ lives before me. In my mind, their lives started when mine did. I was new to it all, and so were they. Time was going by so slowly for me, I didn’t even notice how they were aging until I looked back at photos later on. I went through so many changes, and they did too right along with me. I did so many things for the first time, and it was their first time too, as they had never gone through those milestones in that parental role before. Time was going by so slowly, which meant my time with them was as well.

All I can see as I’m watching my child grow is how fast time is passing, but all he can see is that he’s known me his entire life and that has to be a long time, because it’s all he’s ever known. In his personal timeline, I look the same now as I did all the way back when he couldn’t even lift his head, and he’s changed so many times since then. Time must go by so slowly.

When I look at it from his point of view, and I think about him going through life at the same speed that I did as a child, it gives me a new found comfort. Time isn’t going that quickly. It went slowly before, and it’s the same speed now, I just have to look through his eyes. It’s okay to watch the clock sometimes and let the second hand pause and just sit with you for a moment.