These last few days I have heard several people say, “How can it be October?” and “What happened to September?” and a lot of “I thought time would slow down when I got old!” My science-based mind is perplexed. Time is a measurement which is constant, formulated, and does not speed up or slow down. Only our perception of time does that. There are always 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day.
Hearing these statements got me thinking. The statements that I heard were very truthful and said in earnest for us that are beyond the age of 65. If you are fortunate not to punch a time clock, your day is not run by the hours that you work, minutes that you have for lunch, or days until the weekend. At least that is what you are told when you retire.
I decided to look at the month of September because I too am wondering where did it go.
There comes a time in your life that you may be retired but again work around a schedule, not a work schedule but an appointment schedule that looms on the horizon. Those are special days that you spend most of your time waiting in a doctor’s waiting room waiting on the doctor to find time to see you. AND it is not just one doctor but a group of doctors, each specializing in fixing and repairing various zones of your body. I personally rarely miss a week that I am not visiting one office or the other. This is very time consuming. Perhaps that is where time goes.
As I scan my monthly calendar, I note that I have several days that I haven’t felt well. In my youth, I blissfully ignored illness and trudged ahead. Now when illness comes upon me it takes several days if not weeks to recover. I have learned to stay home and recuperate. I no longer see the value of sacrificing my body to accomplish things that I deemed more important in my youth. My body is also telling me that perhaps if I had taken better care of myself when I was younger my body would not be so susceptible to the attack of viruses and bacteria or be deemed a wreck. Now there is some of that lost time.
As you know I am a retired teacher. Every morning, I wrote on the board what day of the month it was. Now that practice is far behind me, I often don’t know what day it is, not just the number but the actual day of the week. The only thing that has kept me grounded is Sunday means NFL games are on. Now they, meaning the masterminds of the networks, have football on almost every day. Thank goodness for the clever jingles at the beginning that reminds me what day it is. I must admit a lot of my time is watching sports on television. It may be that I wish to live vicariously because my mobility has narrowed my participation in the sports I loved. More time accounted for.
Something that eats a lot of my time is reading. In the past, I was too busy doing all the things I had to do to survive to read. Now I can snuggle up in my way-too-soft blanket, water jug by my side, and delve into my latest fantasy novel with no regards to the passing hours. The only thing that stops my adventure is the blurring of my focus and perhaps my husband loudly declaring that a meal should be prepared. I have found myself looking up from my latest book and declaring, “I didn’t realize it’s that late!” I have found some more of that lost time.
I have figured out where September went. I didn’t mention family gatherings and group meetings. I didn’t account for the time spent watching the weather. How did I ever get any work done before I was retired?
Here’s the thing: As I grow older, it becomes abundantly clear that my time on earth is drawing to a close, and the days that have been spent is larger in number than the ones that lie ahead. I have realized that every tick of the clock, every hour that passes, is heading to the end of my adventure here. We older folks cherish the time we have left. We mark birthdays and anniversaries with gratitude. We bid farewell to others that have meant something to us and often pause when yet another person in our sphere of reality takes leave. Time isn’t going faster. We just notice it more and its value increases with each setting of the sun.
As time moves forward, it does not slow down or speed up. We do not lose it. We do waste it. We must learn to value it and as with all things that are valuable, we need to treat it with respect and reverence. A person is allotted only so many ticks of the clock. Don’t count them. Make them count.
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Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of articles and opinions written by a group of retired and current teachers — Ken Ballinger, Billy Kreigh, Kathy Schwartz, and Anna Spalding. Their intent is to spur discussions at the dinner table and elsewhere. You may also voice your thoughts and reactions via The News-Banner’s letters to editor.
