Illogical Time

Anonymous

My whole family lounged around the table, looking at my grinning sister as she blew out her sparkling candles. We all shouted and clapped, celebrating her life.“I’m more than a decade old now!” my sister said gleefully. My parents laughed but I remained silent, eyes widening, a thousand thoughts whirling through my head. How is it possible that more than a decade has passed since my sister was born? That day in the hospital, holding her and realizing just how much my life would change, didn’t seem all that recent, but ten years was not something I had registered.

Time seems completely illogical on occasion. For instance, an hour seems like an eternity when you suffer through a boring car ride or impossibly hard test but it seems like only a second when you are enjoying the company of your friends. Every moment is relative. Even our definition of time is relative and therefore inconsistent, depending on the person. For example: one minute. But one minute from when? From when you start a timer? From when you dive in the water? For one person that minute could be from when they started writing an essay while for another it was just an ongoing minute in their life.

Two major turning points for more recent historians are the 9/11 attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic. Papers are written about pre-COVID and post-COVID. We compare what security and safety felt like before the collapse of the Twin Towers and our defense systems now. However, for a historian studying older eras, the Black Death, the fall of Rome, or even the Revolutionary War would have been key points of reference on their timeline with a definable before and after. It depends on who the person is. My life is defined by before my siblings and after. Before they came into my life, I was a completely different child, with no true sense of responsibility or weight on my shoulders. After my sister was born, I became known as an older sibling, a protector, and a role model amongst other new labels. In every reflective project I have made about my life, my siblings’ births have been key referential points on the timeline. However, someone else’s life, might be defined by when they had their person, their everything, their reason to get up in the morning, and when they lost them. The catalysts of change in every person’s life are different and you can’t always identify them just by looking.

Many parents and teachers emphasize reveling in your childhood and enjoying every moment. Often, I find myself reflecting and feeling as if I haven’t done enough, I haven’t made a big enough impact, I haven’t spent my time in a meaningful way, or time is a slippery snake that I can’t grasp and can only watch as it slithers away behind me. These heavy thoughts plagued my mind as I sat thinking at the table. My sister had grown older, and I hadn’t fully realized it, almost as if I was an astronaut wandering across a dusty moon without being able to clearly see the land around him. Examining the world around me now, I see so many instances of time moving on in its weird paradoxical way. I recognize that the way each of us experiences the passage of time is going to be incredibly unique. Others might see time as a beautiful cerulean star that is heavenly and exalting while I can only think of it as a dark blurry concept I can’t understand. Our roles could be reversed the next day, and the day after, and on and on into eternity with neither of us having a concrete idea of what time truly is. Rather than harping on regret, anxiety, and confusion, the best actions I can take are to focus on what future I want, how I can actively live in it, and make the most of the time I have with the people I care about.