Something Happened

Around 55 something happened to me, not sure exactly what, but my perspective of time & me changed. Before then I had goals & aspirations but as I began to realize there is a heavy price to pay to get there, I also began to understand many of the experiences I wanted to have either slipped away or don't really matter.  I don't really want to climb Rainier any more.  There's no way I can be a Boeing VP and that is JUST fine with me although I once thought I may have a chance.  Today I want to saddle up on my 1941 Harley-Davidson and ride from Mexico to Canada.  And that's all. Today.

I want to know I've done that, tuck it away so I can replay the tapes any time I want. I want the richest experience I can reach for, because I don't know how much time I have left. I never thought this way before 55.  Time left was an abstract concept, somebody else's problem. Today it's my problem and guess what?  It's OK. I embrace it, wallow in it because it's all mine and I've found some fine people to share it with, here in Yuma, in Seattle, and almost everywhere I go.  It doesn't have to be around bikes, of course. I've found I can be more open to being in the moment, more open to now. I've found myself savoring every bite of an ice cream cone, nothing but that.  Lunch with special friends. The richness doesn't have to be in what I do, it can be in simply experiencing right here right now.

There's another reason besides age that continues to teach me this, more on that later.

I think about time often, and ask myself this question. What if time were a static thing and we move through it?  We think we're victims of time, like leaves in the wind, being blown along, circling in the whirls & eddys.  What if we could speed it up or slow it down, make it stop or run through it?   Maybe we can. Maybe we can love time and make it ours by taking the power back. Maybe we can just live in the now, as if there is no time.  Every now and then I believe I get a taste of that, and I like it.