After you have children, the topic of time comes up a lot. “You blink and they’ll be in college,” is very common to hear in the grocery store checkout lane. I hear people say, “the time goes by so fast” as I watch them look at my child and I see their eyes go back to a time when their own child was that age.
I hear you, and it makes me feel very sensitive about time.
I started reading The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom while I was on vacation. Even though this book is a fable, I connected with it in a way that made me think about time differently:
“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on the wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”
Being on vacation and reading about time, forced me to consciously think more about living in the moment. The time on vacation was ticking down, and the moments were slipping away. I tried to put the book down and take as many photos as I could, to capture those moments in the present time.
Reflection about Time
Well, my vacation is over now, so I have time sensitive thoughts like: “it went by so fast.” Time surrounds me, and these timely thoughts are now seeping into my every day. “Please make it yesterday,” rings out to me from the book as I am trying to finish reading it post-vacation. I wish I could go back on vacation, a day before today, any day before today.
“We all yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes we forget what we have.”
We all yearn for something to change about time: speed up, slow down, change, stop…this list could go on for a long time. As a full time mom who is employed part time, I fear that there is not enough time in the day. Time flies, and there is simply not enough time to get everything done on top of surviving the day with kids. Seriously, time waits for no one.
Not Enough Time to Finish this Book!
But I persevered and finished the fable: about a man who measured the days and the nights – before the word Time was ever spoken. This man loved his wife dearly, but he left her when she was deathly ill so he could beg at the highest tower for the days and nights to stop. It was, in that moment, he became Father Time and the concept of Time was born. He was cast away to live for thousands of years in a lonely, isolated cave; surrounded by tears that came from people on Earth begging for time – crying about time.
Father Time (FT) was given an opportunity to be freed from his immortality in this cursed cave. He was called to Earth to save two very different people: a young teenage girl considering suicide, pleading for time to “Make it Stop.” The other was an old man with a critical illness who is pleading for “Another Lifetime.” These two are brought together, by FT, the second before they choose their final fate.
The two were confused about why they were brought together. It was as if time had frozen for that second. FT would use that second to show them the future. How both of their final fate decisions would impact the ones they love.
FT realizes the blessing he was given. Even though he felt sadness for those thousands of years, he had a greater purpose that came to fruition in that second: to help these two very different humans come together because “in their normal lives, they never would have met.”
When that second in time unfreezes, what will the fateful two decide to do? And what happened to Father Time? Let’s just say, his ending brought tears to my eyes. I really don’t want to give the answers (but just encourage you to read the book!)
If you had all the time in the World – what would you do with it? If you had only one second – what would you choose?
Would you get everything done that you have dreamed about doing for so long? Or would you just waste it away? Whatever it may be, the time is yours. It’s ticking everywhere. Make of it what you can – don’t yearn for time to change.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Jenni Laplow 
1 thought on “Time Sensitive”