Time Is A Friend To Nobody

Time is nobody’s friend. When we are young it moves too slowly. As we grow older it flies past us. When we are going through heartache or healing we are always told to “give it time”. The last thing we want to do is to wait.

When we are young a week feels like a century. To a child a week is “seven sleeps”. But, a sleep, meaning a day, feels like forever when a young one is awaiting a big event. Seven sleeps to Christmas might as well be a year when you are five years old

Fast forward 30 years. A week means only seven days until a deadline hits. Seven days to a birthday party may mean being short on time to go shopping for necessary decorations and gifts. A week to the deadline on a bill might be seven days of scrambling around to collect pennies.

And, let’s go forward yet another 30 years. Now at 65 years old life generally slows down again. It has to. Our bodies have slowed us down. We are beginning the aging years. Days behind us are more than days ahead of us. Every morning we wake is a blessing to be breathing.

A week at 65 years old may mean seven days of loneliness and feeling forgotten. Or perhaps seven days of anticipating a visit from someone long ago left behind and just recently reconnected.

Time is nobody’s friend as they age. The fact that time is passing by is an ever-present thought that warns us to take action now on anything we have left to do in life. Regrets about things left undone begin to overwhelm us and bring on feelings of guilt.

Then there are the physical effects of aging. Our bodies slow down to a crawl. All the diseases of age befriend us: arthritis, bursitis, gout, diabetes and so many more. Women suffer through menopause. Smokers succumb to COPD, emphysema and other lung ailments. Bones grow more fragile.

The hardest part about aging is reaching a point when we are no longer able to be as independent as we would like to be. Our bodies force us into interaction with other people in order to live. We learn humility and lose shame.

Nobody thinks about time until it is an enemy. Then time becomes the elephant in the room. We can’t stop time, nor can we change it. We live with it as it is and deal with its effects.

What we can do is use what we have left to the best of our ability. We can use our time wisely and lovingly to spread happiness and peace to all we know.

What will you do with the time you have left?