Time and Existence

I feel like I’m holding onto time too tightly. I either want it to slow down or speed up. I can’t just accept it for what it is and let it be. My fingers press against the glass of a pocket watch. The second hand moves under my thumb and past it. It doesn’t care that glass separates me from it. It simply pulses past, unfazed by my gaze. It doesn’t realize that it taunts me, doesn’t consider that I might want it to stop. What and who am I to time?

The ticking reminds me that time is measured. It’s organized, but part of me wonders if I was truly created for measured time. Does it fully appreciate life and existence? It kind of feels like time cruelly saunters by beauty and wonder. It doesn’t care about grief or loss. It doesn’t even really care about celebration. It just keeps going.

There’s so much I don’t understand by it. Where does time go? How does it interact with eternity? If I threw a marshmallow into the gears of grandfather clock, would eternity laugh at the sticky contraption? Or would it bow to the sad demise of an object and continue to ripple in and out of the tiny timeline of life on earth.

Part of me wants to slow down and live beyond the constraints of time. I want to stand in the midst of falling snow and witness the creation of a snowflake to eternity. I want to watch the idea of it form and then the creation of it in the atmosphere. I want to inspect each tiny flake to see for myself that each one is truly unique. I want to watch it from beginning to end. And I want to be able to hold snow in my hand without it melting into water.

I’m tired of time flying by or slowly edging forth. I’m tired of time not caring about emotion and existence. I would really love for it to consider the healing process and release a life so a person could take some deep breaths of eternity in order to embrace a greater meaning. Or at least pool out in a moment so you could see the consequences of bad decisions, that way you didn’t follow through with curiosity or foolishness at the wrong turn.

I think at some point we can obtain wisdom enough to slow down when necessary, but we can’t control time. I can’t even truly answer what time is and that’s frustrating. I just need a little bit of breathing room here. I understand it was created for seasons and tracking. I just need the second hand to stop ticking by so needlessly right now. It’s maddening. I’m sure in so many ways this tiny measurement holds and fulfills purpose. In it is my own basic need for order and organization. I just don’t feel like time is my only measurement for record keeping and timeline. There’s more, and yet embracing more is like a foreign concept that needs exploration and processing.