| Where
Did The Time Go? |
| Spring forward. Fall back. For those of us who attend church
on Sundays, these Daylight Savings Time phrases are synonymous
with either arriving before the church doors are unlocked
or arriving late and missing the sermon completely (which
is not always such a bad thing). Twice each year, we manipulate
time in an attempt to capture a few more minutes of light. |
| Author Lila Green said, "Time flies whether you're having
fun or not." As a former hospice social worker, I can relate.
I talked with many people at the end of their lives and was
struck by the frequency with which I heard, "Where did the
time go?" |
| Time flies whether you're having fun or not. Unless you're
Kermit the Frog who said, "Time's fun when you're having flies."
|
| Although this valuable commodity of time speeds past us
every second, we do have the ability to make the most of it. |
| Early in our marriage, we (I) decided that we (I) just didn't
want to spend four hours every Saturday cleaning the house.
In fact, to this day, I hate cleaning bathrooms. I'd rather
buy a new one. So, we (I) hired someone to clean our house.
It was one of the best decisions we (I) ever made and I would
gladly get a second job if we (I) ever got to the point where
we (I) couldn't afford it. |
| One of our college friends, Shirley, who is a bit scattered,
could never find the time to get her house ready for the cleaning
person. So she hired a woman to come in the day before and
straighten it up. That makes me laugh just writing it. |
| Sometimes I worry about the amount of time I spend sleeping.
If I sleep seven hours per night and live to be 85 years old,
I will have slept for 216,580 hours. That probably seems like
a nap to a college student, but it works out to 9,240 days
or 24 years. With that much sleep, you'd think I could stay
up past 10:30 without slumping into a pool of drool on the
couch. |
| Time flies whether you're having fun or not. |
| Sometimes time doesn't seem to fly. When the Boston Red
Sox were beating the Colorado Rockies 13 to 1, I'm sure every
click of the clock felt like a bat to the head for the Rockies.
And when I'm having any kind of dental procedure (also known
as barbaric oral destruction), the clock seems to stand still. |
| I remember that classic scene in the movie "Risky Business"
when Tom Cruise's character Joel Goodsen is stuck at school
while Lana, a "woman of the night" played by Rebecca De Mornay,
is waiting for him back home. The slow passage of time is
painful for him and at one point, the minute hand on the clock
jumps backward one click. That's exactly how I feel every
time the dentist says, "Open a little wider, Ron." |
| As the days get shorter and the light starts to disappear,
time does seem to fly. I think about this a lot when I look
at my children. While it seems that it's been a lifetime since
they were born, it was also just yesterday. However, my son
no longer shows me something from his nose and says, "My friends
call this a booger." And these days, my daughter offers a
normal blessing at dinner instead of when, at six, she said,
"Now I lay me down to eat." |
| Time flies whether you're having fun or not. |
| I need to remind myself to enjoy every moment of every day.
Instead of longing for the four shots of caffeine to kick
in, I should try to enjoy the burn as they go down my throat.
Instead of beating myself up for having one more dessert at
a party, I should enjoy that it's free and full of chocolate.
Instead of wishing that I was retired and playing golf every
day, uh, well, maybe that's not a good example. |
| Time flies whether you're having fun or not. |
| I learned in hospice care that I need to live each day as
if it were my last…because one day I'll be right. Until next
time, just humor me. |
