Time
Time will stretch on presumably forever, but we will not. Time might be guaranteed to the moon, stars, and space, but for us, it’s finite and precarious.
I’m sitting by the ocean, wondering if the water washing up onto the shore is the same water that washed up onto this shore a thousand years ago. I’m sure a scientist could easily tell me yes or no, but I don’t want to know. At this moment, I’m finding comfort in the fact that some things stay the same — the water in the ocean, the rhythm of the waves.
Despite trying to align my breathing to that rhythm, I feel the panic creeping into my bones. I’m feeling my heartbeat in my fingertips. I’m feeling like I’m running out of time and moving too quickly, all in the same moment. I’m thinking about everything I’ve wanted to do, everything I’ve wanted to see: redwoods in the Pacific Northwest, the beaches of Greece, Alaska in the dead of winter. Beads of sweat appear on my forehead despite the cool October air, and I think about never seeing any of them.
I see a clock when I close my eyes, an old digital one like the one I used to have on my nightstand as a kid. It’s far away and blurry, but clear enough to see a date and a time. I’ll never know what it says, but I know what it means.
My eyes open and the light immediately causes them to squint. I’m pointing out five things I can see: the seashell next to my foot, a buoy bobbing on the water, seaweed mixed into sand, my fingernail, a rock; four things I can hear: the crash of the waves, the wind whipping by my ears, the sound of a plane overhead, the laughter of a child in the distance. My breathing finally regulates to the waves. I’m breathing in the salt air and letting it heal my soul the way my grandmother told me it would heal the scrapes on my legs.
I’m reminding myself I have time.