I’ve been reflecting a lot lately. I go through phases like this where I turn inward and time travel through my past. Sometimes I’ll be able to almost relive moments in time in my mind. I can remember the smallest of details from days even when I was a small child. I’m not sure why certain things are able to be remembered like that. Especially when they seemed so small or just normal, everyday life.
Then it kind of hit me that all those moments–all of the normal, everyday life things–are those things we all take for granted the most. We’re “busy” living our lives, after all.
What I would do to go back and simply live one day over again, with this reawakened knowledge! I would savor each moment, every breath, everything I did that day.
I can vow to bring that same emphasis to days right now… days in the future. But, like so many other humans, I get sidetracked. I get swept up in the hustle and bustle of days in the year 2024. The responsibilities that fall on my shoulders take precedence over daydreams of days gone by and fully giving in to mindfulness of a moment. How does one strike the balance between savoring moments and the requirements of daily living?
Then, often late at night, when I can’t sleep, I think of the inevitable end we all must face one day. “No one here gets out alive”. Death is all around us, every day. One day will be our day to face the greatest of the unknown. Humans have grappled with this since there have been humans.
I will always have an enormous amount of respect for how my spouse faced his end. It was certainly on his terms. It was not something he wished to talk about. We could talk for hours about our theories of what lies beyond physical death, but when that physical death was suddenly very close, the discussion ceased. He was stoic. He carried on with daily life for as long as possible.
Time is such a relative thing. Humans have created time keeping, but the actual passage of time is part of existence, part of this dimension. As Einstein theorized though, time is an illusion that moves relative to an observer. We have all experienced time seemingly moving faster or slower. Can we slow down time on our own? That brings me back to savoring the moments we have on this rock.
And time, as they say, waits for no one. It marches on. Enjoy the moments. Another trip around the sun.