Time Enough

Staring at the clock and rushing to get this written before the grandchildren arrive, I’m thinking about time. Does it fly? Does it drag? What is it about time that causes twenty-four hours or eight hours or even one hour to feel so dramatically different depending upon the circumstances you’re in. I know that as a child, a school year seemed like forever to me. Even as a teenager, the years seemed to creep by way too slowly, while I waited for the ultimate freedom that I thought adulthood would bring. But at this stage of the game, the years seem to be flying by. There it is again. The idea that time moves, that it even exists! Does it? Or is it just a construct that we humans needed to create to give some kind of order to our otherwise randomly ordered lives? Sometimes it scares me when I start thinking about time. How much has already gone by in my life and how much is left? I do the math, and it worries me. Has half of the time gone by? More? I think about how to stretch the time…make it last! And then, I remember those grandchildren. The minutes I spend with them are kid minutes. The ones that take longer, that stretch out forever, like a year of school used to feel to me. The more time I spend in the land of children, the longer my minutes will last. And then I know that it’s true…time really does stop when the grandchildren come. The whole world ceases to exist, and all that matters to me is them. I hear a car door slam, the ring of the doorbell. Dogs are barking, the shuffling of feet, “Nanny!” The minutes are slowing, I see their shining faces, and I realize…I have plenty of time.