Time 8/11/2008

It’s so nice to be back in Camas, after our year-long hiatus living on the West -side of Vancouver. It’s so amazing how fast a year can pass! While I was at the park today, I got to thinking how frightening this very thought can be. It seems like just a couple of weeks ago, I was in one of my best friend’s weddings--when in reality it was almost a month and a half ago. Yesterday, I watched another close friend be married to her best friend, and before I know it, they‘ll be celebrating an anniversary. Nathan and I are coming up on THREE years! What’s scary about this is that if you’re not careful, you lose the time and years pass and then you’re still thinking about those things that you said you’d do or those things you want to do, but never actually started doing. On the flipside--you might just be livin’. Hopefully though, the way you’re livin’ is in all the ways that you’ve intended. Time has it’s way with running from you.

When I was younger, time was endless. I could play Barbies for full days at a time. I can remember driving with Alyssa to her dance lesson in West Vancouver, actually, and feeling like it was a full-blown roadtrip. Now, the freeways get me anywhere faster than ever, and it’s as though the drives in the car are getting shorter and shorter, since when I reach my destination there is always some form of chaos that greets me, and I’m wishing that I was instead, still driving. For example, my trip to the produce market today. It began with me scrambling to remember my list while trying to keep Asher from wailing, and ended with me juggling two bags of groceries, a diaper bag, a car seat, and a two-year-old with a fruit roll-up out to the parking lot. Almost every one of these trips leaves me feeling like I’ll never do it again--with two kids, but then I’m off to the next place the very next day, because I have to, or else I’d be stuck in the same place all the time, and before I’d know it the summer would be gone, and the kids would have been ripped off from the great weather, and time would have had it’s way with me, again.

One of my favorite quotes from Annie Dillard is “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” I guess I’m nearing the end of the time that I’ve spent thinking about what I want to do. I have my ideas and the inspiration is building--but I don’t want to just say “in time. . .” anymore, because it’s just starting to feel like wasted time, and I don’t want any more of that.