What is the Speed of Time?

The first 20 years of life crept along.  Before my memory, I am told my ambition was to be as tall as the handle on the refrigerator door.  Ever so slowly, I grew and attained that height. 

I do remember that I thought the day would never come when I could read well enough to read the Sunday comics to myself and not rely on my somewhat crazy uncles on Sunday afternoons at Grandma’s house.  One could never be sure they weren’t editing as they read.

I wanted time to stop so that I didn’t have to walk across the stage in front of all those people to graduate from sixth grade.  I could feel it coming ever so slowly but surely.  It turns out, that I could live through that intimidation.

The pain of mid-teens seemed never-ending.  I believed that to be the Dark Ages of my life.  Who am I?  What am I supposed to be doing with my life that stretches out in front of me?  How will I find purpose and meaning?  But eventually, I emerged with hope for the time ahead, because of my faith in a loving God.

I don’t know if the six years I spent getting my education after high school crept or sped.  In retrospect, they are the blink of an eye, but at the time, they were packed full of life-defining experiences.  I remember times when I counted down the hours left in my shift caring for some extremely ill and difficult patient.  I knew that if I could reach the end of my eight hours, the impossible situation was someone else’s responsibility.  Agony and ecstasy shaped me and formed life-long bonds with friends as we suffered or rejoiced together.

I walked down the aisle with my Dad and back up it with my husband over 50 years ago.  On that day, the notion of 50 years together was exciting but not really possible to comprehend.  We were pledging to grow old together, but so much life was ahead before we reached old age.

Ha!  Fifty years!  Is that a long time or is that the blink of an eye?  Looking back, I can barely wrap my head around all the things we have experienced together….wonderful times, horrible times, mundane times. 

Today is the last day of 2019.  I am 74.  Do I have 20 more years?  If so, will they edge forward at a snail’s pace or shoot past like an accelerating locomotive?  Twenty years seems like a long, long time when one is a child.  Now, twenty years seems like nothing…a wisp of smoke.  Here I am asking some of the same questions as in my mid-teens.  Who am I now? What am I supposed to be doing?  This time, however, it doesn’t feel like the Dark Ages of my life.  I have lived through all those strange and sometimes frightening eras.  I have learned that God has been faithful, and I believe that will continue…whether I have 20 years left or 20 months or 20 days or 20 minutes.  I know sometimes life will pass slowly and sometimes rapidly, but I know it only goes in one direction for mortal man.  I am OK with that!

Welcome, 2020.