Isn’t it strange how a microwave minute seems to last an eternity? Or after 30 minutes of running on the treadmill, you look down only to realize it’s been a hot 4 minutes?
Time seems to move at a snail’s pace sometimes, it seems that way mostly when we are young and anticipating all the wonders that the future may bring us. As we grow up each new milestone just seems to speed up the timeline. Turning 13 turns into 16 and getting a car. Then you are 18 going to college or striking out on your own. Then you sneeze, open your eyes and you’ve graduated and got your first job in a new, exciting (read: slightly scary) city. You go to bed and wake up on your wedding day and things get faster and faster.
As a kid, for some odd reason (man was I an odd duck) I LOVED hourglasses. I had one the dentist gave me to time brushing my teeth. It had blue sand and I would just play with the thing, flipping it on one end, then the other. Back and forth, starting and stopping it before all the sand was on one side. I never realized the correlation that the sand was to represent the time spent. Now I see it.
Time and sand are scarily similar. Each grain of it is a moment, big or small; something significant, whether we know it or not happening in our lives. At first, there is so much pressure from all the grains (moments) built up that we have to look forward to. It seems to take forever until we look up again and realize we only have a few grains left.
Those grains of sand added together also give us perspective. When you’re on a beach you can look around and see a good amount of the scenery around you, but if you climb up on a sand dune made out of millions of grains of sand, you have a much better view of everything around you. A more complete picture, if you will. Sometimes sand gets stuck in places and we forget about it until it comes falling out of our pockets. Like those Friday nights curled up with your best friend in bed watching (read: talking about boys) movies and eating snacks.
The scary thing we have to admit is that we have no control. As much as we would love to be father time flipping that hourglass over and over, that’s not us. We are the hourglass. All we can do is appreciate it. Even if it seems tedious and we dread the waiting. Right before graduating college, I started reflecting on time. I sat through all 3 hours of it and soaked up every moment. I want to start using the sands of time like a sponge. The sand on the beach soaks up the ocean water and retains it and it looks fuller, and less granular than sand farther away from the water. That’s what I want; to soak in every second of every moment.
Take that father time!
Savannah Jung 