When I think about time, it has mostly been in relation to not having enough.
Marveling at others who seem to have the ability to use theirs better. To get more done, drive stronger impact, inspire more people by their example, to simple appear effortless.
The funny thing about time is that until something changes your perception it evolves but never breaks. You can be mad at time, begging it to slow down, to speed up, to repeat.
But you may never think of it as something that is broken in your world.
It is a constant, a comfort, a common experience that we all share. We all see time pass, we all plan for upcoming time, we all try to make either the most of or the least of it depending on the thing we are doing in time.
You see this thing that is ever present and counting on. Marching into different seasons, versions of you, changing what you want or need from it.
The cruel irony about time is that it has the capacity to overwhelm you, to force grief on you daily, or adding compounding heartbreak as it passes.
For me, it’s been 221 days. A marker of time that no matter what I’ve begged for or offered to give up continues to marching on.
5,304 hours of other people going back to their routines. Picking kids up, working away, laughing, and seemingly moving forward.
31.4 weeks of mornings wake ups and reminders that I can’t call you to see what you are up to for the day. 31.4 weeks of reminding myself what your voice sounded like when you were happy and with me. 31.4 weeks of wondering how to get to the next week and the one after and the one after, and so on.
Relentless grief is ever present in my days.
I find joy and I laugh but the dark follows because you’re the one I want to share it with and I can’t. To call you and tell you something I did — be it amazing, tiny, of no importance to others, or stupid. I feel that grief and it takes my breathe away in the calm that we would have enjoyed together.
Persistent longing to tell you about a home I’m creating, my accomplishments, my fears, my worries, my anxiety that only you could understand.
I’m at the beginning of this journey — one I thought I had a handle on — because I had been here before.
But jokes on me.
Grief and time, have no guidelines, rules, or common courteous.
It moves in and creates a weight on your world that just sits.
Ever present to make everything feel less.
I have managed to get through 60.55% of this year without you. How do I even begin to prepare for 100% of next year without you?
When I talk about you, or describe my parents, it feels like the weight lifts for brief moment. Speaking your name, sharing your experience, and reminding myself that you did everything you could to prepare me for this version of my life without you, without both of you.
What happens when, like Dad, I can’t hear you anymore? What happens when I really fall and you’re not there to help or build me back up?
What happens if that grief just sits on my world, my heart forever?
Dear Mom … it’s been 221 days, 5,304 hours, 31 weeks, 60.55% of the year. It feels like a lifetime and the blink of an eye all at once.
Love Ray
