On Time

I have always been overly obsessed with time.  Even when I was a child
I could never accomplish tasks quick enough, or grow up rapidly enough
to keep pace with outside elements.  I was stuck being forever too young.
I felt time had lost me and I would be continually trapped in my youth.

I remember the day time sped up. 

I was fourteen.  My grandmother picked me up from high school.  I recall
cursing due to embarrassment around my friends.  She drove a silver Thunderbird.
I got in the car.  It had maroon felt seats and felt like a hearse.
The words got lost and I shut down because I knew without hearing.
They had taken my father.

And in that car ride, I saw my childhood slip away.  I knew I wasn't an
adult, I was simply surfing a line between dependency and blankness.  Then
the years of being a lucky girl ensued.  It seemed before I could get
a breath in, I was going to college, getting married, working, playing
with my dogs, getting divorced, living alone, existing.  The
days passed after that, mesmerized by prescriptions and alcohol.  Somehow
thinking that was how life worked.  And one day they would take me
away too.

With the prompting of those closest to me; I started emerging from living
in the bottom of an hourglass.  I stopped feeling too old, like I had grown up too
quickly, missed all the opportunities of youthful endeavors, and I started moving
my ass.  And with no time lost, I was in Chicago. 

It has been one month.

And sometimes I still feel like I'm not moving quickly enough, accomplishing enough, or
I begin to panic about failing.  Then I remember that the better part of my life is always
going to be what is ahead of me.  I no longer need to measure time in years, achievements,
or the grey beneath my eyes.  In fact, I don't need to measure it at all; otherwise, I forget to
live.  Stop trudging through the past, cease to obsess over the future, just be here -
now.