TIME TRAVELS

It's an interesting phenomenon--TIME. The further you travel forward in it, the more often you find yourself traveling back in time as well. I suppose it is because a well of experiences and memories is forming that you dip into unconsciously as you go. A deep well of the past merging with the present, and confronting the future. We experience deja vu often because our memories resurface, our experiences call to us.

Once when I was visiting Jess and Erin and baby Thomas I was watching Thomas playing with a puzzle. I felt like I almost recalled--a fragment, really of a memory-- putting together a similar wooden puzzle as a child, myself. And then watching the baby toddle about I was transported to my days as Jess' mother, following him about just as Erin was....putting pots and pans back in the kitchen cupboards after a musical pan kitchen cacophony.

FAST FORWARD....[or so it seems from my perspective]

Here is a picture of me now, sitting in the bleachers. Again. For the what? 100th time? But this time I take my crocheting. I don't watch the game. But sometimes I look up and I see Rachel playng. I see Emily. I see a gym filled with young people, cheerleaders, the band. I am in Lovell, Ventura, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Thousand Oaks, Burlington, Cody. I am here now and I am here yesterday. I am a parent, a fan, a business woman. I am finished and I am beginning again. I had to buy a bleacher seat, again. I had given my old ones to Goodwill when I moved to Wyoming, thinking the bleacher days were over.



I don't feel so much older...I feel like I am 42. But I feel so much smarter. I feel like everyone should listen to me, because I know so much more now than I did when I WAS 42. It's different though. It's not like knowing something specific. It's not something I could spout out if someone were to ask me, "so what exactly is it that you know?" It's more like a general KNOWING. I have a sense of things. Sensations....I Know how they feel. Excitement, hope, disappointment, pain. Fear, frustration, fulfillment. I know what they cost. I know whether they are worth the time or not.

I guess that's what you get in exchange for your life's experiences...a deeper well, a broader experience. The urge to grab people and tell them what they don't know that you didn't know either when you were their age, but you know now, and knowing it now, wish you'd known it then. It is bittersweet. Is it regret? Is it wishing you'd had an easier path? A helping hand? A mentor? A guide? It's most certainly not wishing for a "do-over". It's an interesting thought though.

I read an interesting article Sunday morning. It was called the Law of Compensation, and though it was lengthy, it was enlightening. It was written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and I highly recommend it. I think it puts life's ups and downs in perspective.

And don't worry, be happy. Life is short.