Not Yet

Life moves pretty fast.  If you do not stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -Ferris Bueller

Do you ever have that moment when you realize time has flown by?  Recently I have had two situations that have caused the startling realization that time just zips by...pow...that fast.  When I was young it seems like time crawled.  The school day stretched endlessly (not in a good way).  It seemed like I was always waiting for something to end, and something else to begin, and the wait was torturous.  Time seemed to creep backward, if that was possible.  In my youth I truly believed that time was my slow moving enemy keeping from my future.  I am on record stating that I WAS WRONG.  Time is still my enemy, but because it is moving so damn fast.  I want to hit pause I so many things now.  A hug with my kids or my beloved (pause...make it last).  The silly times with friends over lunch or cup of coffee (pause...savor the moment).  It is the little things that are so precious.

Yoda in November 2012

Recently I had to put down my cat, Yoda.  She was seventeen years old, she had kidney disease, she was deaf, her eyesight was poor, she had a heart murmur...she was very old for a cat.  In the human equivalent to her 17 cat years is 96 years old.  Logically, it was time.  She was in pain.  She needed to be carried to her litter box.  We had to coax her to eat, unless it was her treats...she begged for those until the very end.  No matter how many people tell me that 17 years is a long time to have the same cat, I still do not believe it in my heart.  Seventeen years flew by with Yoda.  She was our first pet.  She outlasted two dogs.  She helped raise two kids.  Yoda was at my side for every late night feeding with both kids.  My beloved would be fast asleep while Yoda and I tended to the baby.  Yoda would lay sleeping on my lap watching infomercials when insomnia was not going to let me sleep. (Cats seldom suffer from insomnia)  Seventeen years pretty much just flew by.  I have made a photo book of Yoda, and it has so many great memories.  I can see how time advanced through changing paint colors, furniture, fashion, hair cuts, hair colors, and of course the growth of my kids.  I am glad I have all the picture memories, but I still wish I had her actually here.  At any single moment, I am not sure that I would have said that time was moving too fast...but as I look back it clearly has been. 

The second event that has triggered the realization that time is flying is a high school open house.  My beautiful 13 year old daughter is currently living in the time-space continuum that I had in my youth.  Nothing can happen fast enough and the world is moving at a turtle's pace. (Ironically, the pet she wants to "replace" Yoda is a turtle)  Tonight we need to go to the high school she will be attending in the September for a tour and informational meeting.  We are approaching this from two very differing perspectives.  

Her perspective: This is awesome.  I can not wait!!!

My perspective: WTH? When did she get old enough to go to high school? How can I stop this crazy train?

Such is life, I suppose.  Perhaps my mother felt the same way, but because she is a reserved, classy lady she never let me see her sweat this kind of stuff.  I am more of a force of nature. ("Subtle, like a sledge hammer", my father has said about me, more than once)  I am not holding in my feelings. My daughter knows that I am full of angst over her growing up.  No one is trying to keep her a child.  We have conversations about the current issues that face teens and young adults (I am not a moron)  I just do not like how fast time has flown by.  Can't we pause and have just a wee bit more time?  I also realize I have been amazing blessed to be a stay at home mom for  my daughter for most of her life, and all of my son's life.  It seems rather Peter Pan-like for me to want to keep my kids at their present ages, but at this moment they are just right.  I suppose I would have said the same thing at every age (after they were potty trained...momma never loved the diapers)

The point is (as if I really care if I have a "point")...time flies, and sometimes that notion catches up with you and it sucks, and at the same time it is beautiful because you see some amazing growth.  Sometimes we really do not like that time keeps marching on, but it does.  We just have to remember to stop, look around, and enjoy the moments...no matter how fast they are moving.