T I M E
People tell me I'm young, that I have all the time in the world to learn, do, and become whatever I want. They keep telling me that my hour glass is full; that I am youthful, rich, and free from the bindings that slowly tighten around the aged. Never mind the persistent trickle into the bottom of my glass. Never mind the noose already looped around my neck.
"You have plenty of time."
Then I hear them say that time passes so quickly, that you blink and twenty, thirty-five, fifty, years of sand piles up beneath you and you're left wondering where all your time went. The noose tightens and the bottom drops out before you realize it, and you're left clawing at the glass, fighting to stay here in the present, before you fall down with the dust of all the other dying moments.
"Where is all my time going?" I ask.
The sand shifts under my feet, draining away from me despite my best efforts to utilize each moment. Should this task take two hours? I've been working on this for days and where is my progress? Half the day spent while I paced, caught in a daydream. I have so much ground to stand on but I'm already pressing against the glass, begging for it to stop, trying to claw the noose off of my neck.
I fight against an enemy old as creation. A shadow who looks on passively as I struggle, knowing they will have all I possess no matter what I do. Is there pity in its gaze? Does it feel bad for those of us who live in fear because we can't comprehend what we have, only that its immensely precious? To my mind, time shimmers like a crystal mirage, indiscernible and deceptive. It glitters like gold, shines like the sun, and I'm blinded by the radiance that everyone else is able to watch, some more carefully than others. The desire to honor every grain burns within me, but how do you wisely use something you can't see and don't understand? I'm left doing unquantifiable equations. I want to ration out what I have, to clutch at what I was given so that I won't be crushed by what I wasted in the end.
The most precious resource in the world and I can't even keep track of it, throwing it on the frivolous and holding it back from what matters. Every moment counts, they say, but how can I ever count my moments? I can only count them long after they passed through my hands, and I can realize the injustice of not valuing them when I had them. Hypnotized by the shifting hands of the clock, I'm always too dazed to tell what is most important. The sin and scandal of wasted time eternally lurks in my shadow, leering at every choice I make.
"Are you sure its a good idea to do this?"
"What if you should be doing that?"
"Do you really think these things are worth your attention?"
"What if those things are a more worthy cause?"
Questioning, questioning, questioning.
Every moment, every minute, every day.
The continuous march of time stomps mercilessly over me.
There is so much I want to learn and do and be, but how long do I have until time erodes my mortal frame into something unusable. Will my body give out before I have the chance to be strong? Will my mind shatter before I can make it sharp? Will the light of my dreams fade away before I can even get close?
The noose hasn't even tightened around my neck and its already stealing my breath away.
