Time

*Image credit: Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory

My life feels like it's in some sort of strange time-warp. I can't keep track of the days... they all just seem to blend together without beginning or end. When I realized today that we were already half way through September, I found myself wondering where August went. It just made me realize how much everything feels like a blur. 

I know there aren't any shortcuts through this pathway of grief... and sometimes the weight of time can become so heavy. I find myself looking ahead to the coming months (and years) and I try to figure out how I'm going to get through them... and since I rarely find anything there but overwhelming fear, in those moments I try to find reasons to want to live right now, in this present moment.

Most of the time my reasons revolve around simple things, even things that surprise me at times in their simplicity. Like, riding my bike without hands, or eating an ice cream cone, or noticing a new flower blossoming, or watching the hummingbirds in our front yard. These moments give me little injections of joy, which I'm grateful for. But, there is still this sort of emptiness in time that I'm trying to learn how to live with. There's a feeling of knowing it's good to embrace the present moment fully, but it's hard to do while feeling a constant pull to heaven. It feels like Tug-o-war of the heart. 

I've been grateful for what others have said about time, and how much their words express so much of how I feel.

Neal A. Maxwell: "Eventually, the veil that now encloses us will be no more. Neither will time. Time is clearly not our natural dimension. Thus it is that we are never really at home in time. Alternately, we find ourselves wishing to hasten the passage of time or to hold back the dawn. We can do neither, of course, but whereas the fish is at home in water, we are clearly not at home in time - because we belong to eternity. Time, as much as any one thing, whispers to us that we are strangers here."

C.S. Lewis: "And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness."

It's a challenge to take time right now and transform it into meaningful moments... but, it's a challenge I'm willing to accept, because I don't want to look back on this period in my life and see only "empty successiveness." I want to find purpose and reason to live joyfully even when my heart is in pain.

As my thoughts have been circulating around time, I've been reminded of advice given to me over five years ago... and I'm still finding wisdom in those words of advice that have helped me through so many hard things, and will probably continue to help me as I go through life. I'm pretty sure they will stand the test of time.

Hopefully I will, too.