Has it really been a single year since last summer? That time of my life was so awful, when two of the cats were dying, my friend died suddenly from a DVT, and I was doing my damnedest to die slowly from diverticulitis. My world has changed so radically in one year, I can't believe we have only spun around the sun one time since then. When I started writing, two and a half years ago, I made a vow to myself to live deliberately, to pay attention every day, and to slow down the march of time. It worked better than I ever imagined it would. I know I missed whole swaths of time in my life. I blinked, and my adorable little toddler girls were suddenly marvelous adults, living on their own away from my house. I looked away and the kittens I was so happy to meet were suddenly leaving me as fragile, old cats. I wasted years of my life wondering whether I was thin enough, smart enough, popular enough. I should have been realizing all along that I was enough of everything, if I would only be present in the moment when I was living all those years that have now passed. Now I feel like I have mastery over all time. I have slowed it to a crawl. Yet I refuse to complain that the minutes are actually crawling. Every night before bed, I force myself to review my day, and decide whether to report it as a diary entry or to crack open some greater topic. (I prefer the latter but accept when it is the former.) Living deliberately has changed my whole universe. I no longer stress that I am already halfway through my life. I see the same circumstance, and I tell myself, I am ONLY halfway through my life. It took me decades to get this far, and it will take that long to finish it out. Look at how much I have done in the first act. Now that I know the trick to making the years pass slowly, like they did when I was a young child, I realize I have all the time I need to do everything I want to do. There's no reason not to start now, and to enjoy every second of it.
I startled myself by realizing it was only a year since Cricket, Torden, and Molly died. Since then I changed my diet completely, which still couldn't prevent the most major surgery I could have imagined, had my husband return from a year and a half abroad (and take months to start to resemble the guy he was when he left), attended his retirement ceremony, sold our investment condo, sold my Park, left a city I loved that was filled with people I loved even more, lived in a hectic apartment complex that made me nervous, bought a house, signed up to study real estate, and faced the reality that Murray never will walk and pee like a regular dog (in almost that order). When I started writing this, I was surprised to discover that it has been just over two months since we arrived here from the Park. It was a month ago today that we signed for this house. And while it still looks like a storage unit vomited all over the property, with boxes and mess everywhere, it feels like we have been here ten times as long as we actually have. I don't know whether to credit my skills in making a house feel homey or the fact that we have come back to visit the area so often that it is just the town that feels so familiar already. It may just be my determination to live every minute of my life, and notice it as it goes by. I highly recommend attempting this exercise. You don't have to blog about it every night like I do, or even write it down at all. But every night, before you go to bed, make a point of remembering your entire day, good and bad. Don't gloss over the faults, don't discredit the successes. I think you'll find out how easy it is to slow down time. It's worth it.
I startled myself by realizing it was only a year since Cricket, Torden, and Molly died. Since then I changed my diet completely, which still couldn't prevent the most major surgery I could have imagined, had my husband return from a year and a half abroad (and take months to start to resemble the guy he was when he left), attended his retirement ceremony, sold our investment condo, sold my Park, left a city I loved that was filled with people I loved even more, lived in a hectic apartment complex that made me nervous, bought a house, signed up to study real estate, and faced the reality that Murray never will walk and pee like a regular dog (in almost that order). When I started writing this, I was surprised to discover that it has been just over two months since we arrived here from the Park. It was a month ago today that we signed for this house. And while it still looks like a storage unit vomited all over the property, with boxes and mess everywhere, it feels like we have been here ten times as long as we actually have. I don't know whether to credit my skills in making a house feel homey or the fact that we have come back to visit the area so often that it is just the town that feels so familiar already. It may just be my determination to live every minute of my life, and notice it as it goes by. I highly recommend attempting this exercise. You don't have to blog about it every night like I do, or even write it down at all. But every night, before you go to bed, make a point of remembering your entire day, good and bad. Don't gloss over the faults, don't discredit the successes. I think you'll find out how easy it is to slow down time. It's worth it.
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