I don't even know where to begin. Looking back on flipped over pages of the calendar that hangs over my desk, I am finding it hard to believe that over ten months have passed since I posted my last article. Fall, Winter and Spring have come and gone already, with Summer heading to it's halfway point. We said goodbye to a year and welcomed a new one. Santa, Cupid and the Easter Bunny paid us each a respective visit while Uncle Sam committed his annual plunge into our pockets. Each instance came and went as my pen remained still.
While taking my hiatus, a vast number of my fellow Observers have remained vigilant and even new Observers have joined our ranks. Reading and rereading my back catalog as well as Observing my sparse to non-existing postings during the past 3/4 plus year. I thank you all for your patience and support as I looked for a way to reignite a passion that had started to burn out. You all are the reason I scribble notes on napkins and memo pads while eating dinner in front of the evening news and riding around on a lawn mower, stopping frequently to jot down a thought that presented itself as I perform a mindless task. I love you all.
Although that depth of self searching has brought me back to achieving unblocked thoughts being placed by pen to paper, it has not even closely answered a question that has been asked by all of us at one point of our existence or another. Where does the time go?
As I've gotten older, I have come to realize that time is a relevant matter. Depending upon the situation at hand, time itself can be manipulated to serve that particular instance. For example, a recent trip to the DMV reminded me exactly how slow a second hand can move and on the other side of the top of the hour, I'm still trying to fathom how our daughter turned eight years old this last November. I'm equally perplexed that our son celebrated his 23rd birthday a month prior to my wife constructing a Pug shaped cake for our daughter's big day. What puzzles me even more is that although there is a fifteen year difference separating our two children, time also seems to be affected by the apparent illusion that makes it feel as if my wife and I just brought them both home from the hospital yesterday. None of us can escape this trap as I just witnessed my sister crying as her husband walked our niece down the aisle a couple of months ago. Wasn't she just playing video games and watching cartoons with our son a few days ago? Well.....she was...they just aren't waist high anymore and they both seem to have mastered the remote. No matter if your waiting on D-210 to be called to a service window or how many candles your putting on a birthday cake, as I stated, it all depends.
I've also learned in my 1/2 century plus two years, as with many things in life, time is not the only circumstance that is affected by relevance. Patience is another. The aforementioned DMV can be used, yet again, as a perfect model for my argument. Be it suffering the odor ridden, noisy flatulence of the apathetic person standing in front of you in an endless line, stretching behind a blind corner that seems to lead to oblivion, that non-conformist gentleman rocking the fashion faux-pau of brightly colored top ringed, knee high tube socks with sandals that all the women find so irresistible or the four year old, flailing around a $600.00 I-Phone watching the latest episode of Pig, Goat, Banana, Cricket, courtesy of the state's "free" Wi-Fi with the volume set at ear piercing ....patience can indeed be perceived, as well as tested, on many different levels. Either by themselves can be difficult to handle. When combined, time and patience can lead to the fruition of a positive outcome or become a recipe for disaster...usually the latter.
More often than not, my fellow Observers, we tend to look on both as aspects of our lives that we have to endure. Each dictate a definition in futility we tolerate because we've been taught from childhood that we have limited control, if any at all, over either of them. As we've been so instructed to submit to our inability to change their influence, we must also withstand the contradictions in how we describe experiencing them.
All of us have been told that we would have to wait until we were older to do something, but as we achieve those goals that come with age, we find ourselves wishing we could go back. We learn to give situations in our lives some time, it's just a matter of time, sometime soon....just not right now. And when we question when, we are informed that only time will tell. Adulthood can be just as frustrating in dealing with time laden oxymorons. It can stand still and fly by. We spend it as we try to save it. It is considered infinite but is often limited. Minutes creep by, but if we are not particularly careful, hours can get away from us. We are consoled by being told that it can heal all wounds, however, it can leave the deepest scars. And even though we constantly complain that we don't have enough of it, we seem to have no problem wasting it as well as attempting to find ways to kill it when we have too much of it on our hands as we allow it to slip through our fingers.
Hand in hand we have been advised to have patience and that too can be equally confusing. It has been associated with virtue, but we use it for our own gain while good things come to only those who wait. It has been compared to genius, although I find this a highly questionable premise. One could surmise that a smart person would only warm a chair for so long before finding it wiser to give up on a particular investment of time. I assure you, my loyal reader, that in my case I can honestly write that I won't be in the running for any Nobel prizes in the near future. It can also be exasperating in that no matter how much we study, we usually fail when it is tested. And contrary to the fact that we should keep it, we almost always eventually lose it or allow it to run out in the same fashion that we allow the cursed clock to beat us.
Limited or infinite, virtuous or genius, saving or spending, we all perceive the relevance of time and patience differently and equally the same as a species. They are a constant reminder of our mortality as we wait for our demise with both accompanying us along the journey. They can be our enemies as we use them to count down the days and our friends as they teach us precious lessons in that we should savor every moment we have. To hold our loved ones near to our heart and not allow haste and impetuosity to get the better of us. If each of us could take just one moment before we react harshly. Take one deep breath before we speak rashly. Spare one minute to help a stranger or spend an hour with our family and friends without the worry of responsibility to our over extended commitments. We have to ask ourselves....What exactly would we be losing? Strictly an Observation. If you'll excuse me, I wouldn't want to try your patience by taking up too much of your time.
