Friday, August 11, 2006

__ o'clock and all's well!

If you go to Google.com and search "time," the first result is http://www.time.gov. After selecting the proper time zone one can find one what the official time is, accurate to 0.2 seconds. A map illustrates where the sun currently shines and which areas of the world are shrouded in darkness.

I don't know about the rest of you, but certainly I feel better knowing that, whenever I wish, I can figure out officially what the time is.

Oddly enough, it seems as though we spend part of our life wanting to grow up, and the other part wishing we were younger. My age seems like a good one, but at the same time I get tired of being referred to as "sweetie" and other such embarassing terms of faux endearment when I'm speaking to clients on the phone. Even people with whom I work call me sweetie sometimes. I'm not even all that sweet. But since I'm younger than they are, since I have nine or so months of "-teen" on my age, I'm still in that cutesy age bracket.

We are all separated by tell-tale signs of age— hairstyle, choice of makeup, dress, mannerisms, vocabulary and the ease with which one uses slang... Obviously as we age we adjust ourselves to what we consider to be the appropriate norm. My friends will seek to cover their tattoes and reverse years of sun damage. We will trade in our junker cars for something a little more, well, kid-friendly. Days of easy relaxation will turn into a lifetime of work, broken up by weekends and sick days.

At the same time kids are pushing one another to "grow up!" our parents and their peers will buy shiny sports cars and have their hair dyed and styled to fit the times. People ignore death, or fear it, and when the end comes it isn't to be dwelled upon. While humans are capable of living for many many decades, time both flies by and drags on. Are we never satisfied?

Time is an abstract concept, both "the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole," and "a point of time as measured in hours and minutes past midnight or noon." And yet we define what midnight is, when it occurs, and how exactly to calculate the moments which inflate a second or a minute into what is becomes to people. It means nothing, or it would mean nothing did we not give it meaning.

Amazing that I've been alive for 19 revolutions about the sun, and still the passing of years is as the passing of a moment, and the passing of mere weeks drags out to reveal and eternity.

Maybe time travel really is possible.

2 comments:

David said...

I find it odd that every time I look in the mirror, I am never sure what age I will appear to myself. There are days where I think I look mature beyond my years, and days I think I look far more immature than I believe myself to be.

At the same time, there are moments where the same holds true. We want to grow up but we don't want to stop the partying and the wild times and the having a good times with friends, even if they aren't the most mature of times.

Age is simply a constantly bending thing for some, and an unfortunate constant for others.

Anonymous said...

The day you wrote this entry was my birthday and I couldn't help but relate to your thoughts aging.

I don't think I'll ever grow up, but I don't think I'd want to be a lot younger, either. Been there, done that; some of it was fabulous and some was pretty challenging. I feel as though I've fought those battles (some were wars!) and I learned from them, whether I won or lost. But I sure don't want to go back and have to do it again, as much as I (often) enjoyed the ride the first time!

I've given myself permission as I've grown up and older. Permission to be myself -- genuinely myself, not just the "myself" that challenges authority or the current trend. Permission to have a bad day -- and if necessary, share that. Permission to "not match" all the time. Permission to "be." Not that there aren't rules one sometimes needs to follow, but permission to examine those rules, debate them if necessary, do what I can to change them if I must.

I'm always pleased when people say "You don't look that old," even if they're being polite. But I know what I look like before I clean up for the real world, and it's a little scary.

But mostly, it's how I feel that makes me feel good about life right now. I feel at peace. I feel content. I'm still learning, creating, discovering new things, loving, living, playing and celebrating our world and the people in it with a gratitude I didn't know or understand when I was younger. Even when the rest of me doesn't "work quite right" I am glad for every minute I've ever known and can't wait to find out what's in the next one. Time may go a little too quickly sometimes, but every minute can be an adventure, and there's something exciting about knowing that.