The Fleeting Feeling
As my blog begins to enter its fourth anniversary later this year it has prompted me to really think about what I want to write about and read some of my old posts. I have posted over 30 blogs, edited this website countless times, and have become a mother since starting this page. I have survived a pandemic, changed jobs and schools, and now life looks much different than it did when I began this blog. Yet, somehow I return to one of the core reasons I write, which was discussed in my second blog post. That is the concept of trying to grasp time.
The fleeting feeling I refer to is time. The feeling of time is so fleeting in my mind that it escapes before I've even been able to grasp it. It's similar to trying to catch sand in the ocean wind. It makes little to no sense to me how time even works. It's a social construct, right? But it's a real thing because I get older, and everyone around me ages and my own son grows, and one day you wake up to a new world. Nothing fully stops, energy in constant motion. It is physics wrapped into this conscious reality. It is incredibly hard for me. Throughout the day, I'm constantly asking, "google what time is it?" because I don't understand the concept of time I have a hard time tracking time. How much time does it take me to do a task? How much time do I need to get ready? All of this does not come naturally to me. I'm completely lost and therefore here I am, essentially writing about the same thing I was four years ago. I said, "I'm learning all too well that time goes fast; days and years passing, and in the blink of an eye, you no longer have all the time in the world. One minute, one hour, one day, one year, one decade, gone."
That girl, who wasn't even 21 yet, had no clue! Girl, wait till you have a kid!!! If I could go back and tell that girl anything it would be not to rush, and to trust. Trust that there is always someone looking out for you, and always someone there for you. But it makes me incredibly emotional to think about that girl. After a year of motherhood, and after three years of a global pandemic I thought that girl was gone. I have done a lot of mourning. I lost myself even before becoming a mother to an illness that still pops up and affects me. And even now, in this newly realized version of myself, I miss 2019 Sarah. But reading that blog post makes me think that she will always be with me.
One thing hasn't changed, we both have a hard time understanding time, and we both wish it would slow down, and wish life would stop passing us by. We both feel this inescapable feeling of short-term and fleeting moments of joy. At one point during my pregnancy, I had embraced so deeply the concept of time because it meant that I was one day closer to meeting my son. I loved watching the days pass, and knowing that the pain I was in would come to an end. Sometimes I wish I could let go more, and react in such a way regularly. But now I think of the days that pass as one less day of rocking my baby, one less day of diaper changes, and one less day of what I currently love about my son. Change happening every week, every day. He is an inch taller than he was last week, and now he has a new favorite song, and a new word he's learned. It's all so fleeting.
I hope this year to learn how to accept time, remain present, and most of all not try to overcompensate when I feel the fleeting feeling. When I feel like time is escaping me, when I feel the time has become out of reach and out of grasp and that it is all passing too quickly, I tend to want to hold onto objects. Baby clothes, old clippings, photos, and even something as little as a receipt from a wonderful day. Now I daily journal, and write to fill the need to hold onto the time with a good coping skill. I also scrapbook. But I'm trying to take fewer photos and fewer videos, and remain present and let the fleeting feeling be felt and dealt with and try to let it go. I'm going to try to worry less about the future, and change and accept that the future is tomorrow and that no matter what I think or how I stress tomorrow will arrive.
I'm going to tell myself: Rory has to grow, growth is the goal. Tomorrow brings hope to the horizon. The time spent present is still time remembered. The time doesn't matter as much as the moment. This feeling is okay. Time passes fast, but I have the power to slow it down by soaking in all five senses. You will be here tomorrow, do not rush.
