Tomorrows and Yesterdays

Are tomorrows getting shorter?

How about yesterdays?

The older I get, the faster time moves. It courses along at a quicker, and more ragged pace. It eats away at its own banks and before you know it, you are a lake and not a river. Childhood for me could be written like this:

Wake up. Go. Eat. Play. I’m gonna be a writer. TV. School. Don’t push me. A pilot. Best friends? Eat. Four-square. An actor. Flower and bee. Don’t sting me. Pulled wings. A doctor. Go. Go. Eat. TV. Wrestle. I’ll make movies. Cry. He called me… He pushed me… Sleep. Be a travel photographer. Dream. Wake up. Go.

It wasn’t so much a question of where I was headed. It was just a question of the pace I’d take to get there. I never wondered about the future. I was blessed to know my parents loved me, my teachers believed in me and that clouds in the sky I thought looked like an elephants, no palm trees, were the limit.

But.

Now.

Things have changed.

I am happy. I am having adventures. But I blink and a month is gone. I cough and a day has passed. The long stretched taffy of childhood days has grown hard and concentrated. Don’t look now. It’s passed. Adulthood could be written like this:

Coffee in the morning because without coffee this day will be terrible. Catch the train, but I can’t run because if I run I will spill coffee on my hand and that will burn and it will stain. Turn on the computer and have a second, just one, to sit and think. OK, grade papers, plan events, make copies. These reports need to be put in by ten. These calls need to be made by eleven. Isn’t it my friend’s birthday tomorrow? I once spent an entire day watching all the Naked Gun's with him. What a waste. If I can get through this year, then I might be up for promotion in the next. I read a thing in the paper that says runners are smarter, live longer and I should really…

Here’s how I viewed time growing up at different ages:

1-10: What’s time? I got some ant collecting to do.

10-16: I can’t wait for next year because then I’ll be able to stay up past 10pm, go to PG 13 movies, go on dates, drive…

17-21: Time, so much time. Time to have bonfires, learn guitar, get drunk, sleep late, read books, watch movies, play video games, work out…

22-Now: I used to have so much time. What’d I do with it all? I should have done this… And this… and this… but it’s OK, cause I can do this… and this… and this… and make up for it all.

I guess time has gone from a peaceful, coexisting presence, like those birds that hop on the backs of rhinos and clean them of parasites, to being something I couldn’t wait to spend, and finally, to being something I am suddenly conscious of. Something to preserve. Ration. Invest.

The problem is, the more I blueprint tomorrow, the smaller it becomes. The more I map out yesterdays, the more impersonal they seem.

Who’s to say?

If only…