Quick, There's No Time

There's no time like the present. The past is a memory, the future doesn't yet exist. If I don't do this now, on this tiny speck of reality that is rippling through time in a constant that is always variable, it shall never exist.

Time is the constant. I can alter other variables, but the only way to expand the time quotient is to delegate to others, and there are some things I cannot hand off. Writing exists in my brain to the keyboard, and there's no way to zap it on over to someone else for them to write down. Yes, yes, dictation. That still takes time. And as I discovered recently, it takes focus, and when you're on a long road trip, about the time you relax with the road, new vehicle, and traffic, and you can start to evolve story in your head enough to speak it, one of those variables changes again and you can't. So.

Time is the limiter. There simply is not enough time in a life to get all the things done we wish to do. You can try... but eventually you will hit the limits of your capacity. Sometimes you'll hit that wall hard, and slide down to a heap at the bottom in a puddle of tears, because will ye, nill ye, ye cannot pass.

Time has run through my fingers like water. When I was 18, I had a lifetime in front of me to accomplish all my goals. At 42, I have spent half a lifetime and still, elusive dreams haunt me. I have passed by markers which showed me in cruel outlines what I could have done... but did not. I try not to look back at those markers, choosing inasmuch as I can, to dwell instead on what I have done in my years. What time has afforded me. What joys and memories are in my past that shaped this tiny island of present I stand firmly on, that steer it toward the future I have shaped from nebulous fog into vague possibility. I can only peer a little farther into that misty world. I could step out of work today and be hit by a bus, my time run out. I could continue through the weeks as planned, until I can see a different future that my dreams offer me in glimpses.

All that I have, all that I can be, all I have time for. I'm always tempted to move faster, to urge it on, so I can get to my goals and hopes and dreams sooner. But if I do that, I cannot fully explore the land of Now. Time is for living. Time spent dwelling either on the past or the present is not squandered, until it becomes my sole focus. A narrowed lens of life, ambitious beyond reason, spends time faster and faster until the kaleidoscope of happiness is a muddy blur.

I must find the time to enjoy life. To live and love my family. To rest, and heal, and rise another day with renewed passion for the future without forgetting the past that brought me here. Without time, there is nothing.