Time accelerates.....

When you are 10, February is the longest month. You sit in your 5th grade room and watch it slowly slowly, very slowly go by. It takes forever. Easter break will never come and Summer break will never arrive. And then you are in the 10th grade, and the days still loom long. Being grown up takes forever. Love will never get here.

Twenty finally arrives, and then quite quickly, thirty is here. The next job, the next home, the next child.

This morning when I woke up I knew it was early, the light just starting. The next thing I realized was that I hurt, my back was sore, my legs were aching, it felt like an all nighter that lasted a week.  I threw back the duvet (when did I get that?) and stumbled to the washroom, an over full bladder propelling me.

After, I stood in front of the sink to wash my hands and that was when my breathing stopped. Holy shit! Who was that in the mirror? An older woman, sixty if a day and looking like every inch of it.
It was me, the lines, the gray hair, the sags, the whole enchilada - and that's what I mean by time accelerates.

Does entrograde amenesia include the last 30 years! Man it just sped by. I have little more than a year to go until retirement and cannot wait. Not that I am eager to go travelling (as other retired people are want to do) or empty my bucket list (already working on the next one for my next life), I look forward to doing what I want every single day. Which, strangely enough was exactly what I wanted when I was 15.

Read all day, paint until 4 am, sleep until 2 pm. Wahoo! Bring it on. But looking back, there is a lot to reconcile. People I hurt, people that hurt me, thoughtless unkind things I have done, time lost with my children, love lost by my shallowness, lust that got mixed up with love, blah, blah, blah. It takes courage to look at all that, not to rationalize it but just to look at it for what it was, all my imperfections that caused so much anger, and loss.

Yes time travel takes courage, my love