Time is a thief…
“Yeah and I took a ride with whoever would ask
I looked for the future, was done with the past and the present
Hey that was just something to get through
And the nights went by
And the years went too
My life was a mirror
The reflection was you
And at the end of the day
My voice was so far away
Ooh but maybe you could tell me who I am
And tell me why
I keep a looking
Out there
Why I keep searching
Out there
For something you can't taste or touch or see
No no no
'Cause it's right here, in me
And I know it's all an illusion
You see what you want to see
And I know, I know, ain't nothing gonna rescue me now
I can take all this confusion
I just want to be here now
And everything you'll want or need
I know
It's right here in me…”
— Out There by: Patty Smyth
The groundhog saw his shadow—
six more weeks of winter is a tale as old as time.
A tale that has been written and spun for eons.
Every early February in that same early February morning moment our seasonal fate is met— will sunlight and warmth arrive early or come late…
“Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.” — Christine Caine
Of all things that we are robbed of it’s time and the theft usually occurs when it’s too late to rewind it— as if there ever was a chance... Most times we don’t get sliding door moments. We need to figure out our fate instantly and hope and pray the choice we made was the right one. Or the time we spent we did it well.
It’s almost the 100th day of school and this year these past 100 days have had a wild significance.
These past days and nights have brought me to a place in my life where I wondered if seeing myself differently was finding the alternative to my reflection and finding my shadow. The absence of the light that made the darkness appear but not in a melancholy way but a different feeling altogether…
Driving home this Super Bowl Sunday from the supermarket on the cusp of the late afternoon and early evening and realizing the morning was a blur I began to write across my forehead— where the fine lines are less blurred — sometimes…
Since being back at work and juggling life very differently this year, I haven’t had a good food shop at the grocery store in forever— oddly I needed it. Maybe just the solace amongst a different kind of chaos and the easy listening music in the background— but today that was enough for me.
Driving home with my back seat only full of food for my family and my equally heavy thoughts, I looked up through the dashboard window to find the whitest shades of the winter — we aren’t actually having. It was like the Benjamin Moore paint deck with all the hues of white smeared across the world in front of me— yet it was the absence of color.
Who knew white can come in so many shades…
Cutting through it were the jagged bare branches of the winter trees making shadows on the service road under me and the thin lines for me to write my thoughts down in my mind as they almost appeared before me. Oozing out like whitening toothpaste I couldn’t fit back into the tube.
I thought back for a moment of the past six months and how the next six months are quickly approaching.
When did February become the halfway mark?
What is the halfway mark of anticipation and reflection?— a shadow.
Six months in a reflection and six months in a shadow— things as they were and things as they become.
Listening to the lyrics of my favorite mix of songs only I like and having myself a mini concert on the ride home, I thought about how much I need to find moments for myself.
I am chained to the times of everyone else’s lives, and I am not giving myself the time I need to do my life sometimes. But then I’m torn between wanting to be alone and the fear of missing out on life. Their lives. The ones who are so precious to me.
The stress and balance of being not potentially appearing selfish and remaining selfless to a fault. My own—
Sometimes my children are my reflection and sometimes they are my shadow and depending on the arc of the sun I will see both or none at all.
Regardless they inspire me in 100s of ways—
It’s not my first 100 days of anything but of everything and this year I learned that sometimes the hardest things we do are the most important.
What we seek to find defines the future outcomes.
It hasn’t been the kind of winter that keeps us cold and covered but free and unseasonably warm. It’s the kind of weather that makes us eat frozen yogurt on 60 degree January Thursday and sip iced coffee on the way to school daily.
Out of our comfort zone is something we need to do to find out our own boundaries.
Maybe the pending lion and lamb have other plans for us different than the groundhog —only time will tell.
The weather and the time have changed us and see things that once were absent in ourselves and each other.
My children are getting older and life keeps moving and the reflections of our shadows are defining us like never before…
What will the next 100 days bring… only time will tell…