Living Outside of Time
I live outside of time. For me, time is a strange and nebulous pool of dark waters that I often dip my toes into, but have never indulged in. One day feels like a week, and a week feels like a day; a year is nothing but a blink in my memory. I feel as if I have gone from zero to twenty-one in nothing flat, and that all the memories that I’ve built up are really like words on a page - something you memorize and repeat for others, without absorbing their meaning. It’s so easy to talk about events in the measure of years - without really considering the true amount of things encompassed in that space of time. Look at the flyleaf of any old family bible for a glimpse of this phenomenon.
Albert, born 1904, married 1924, daughter born 1925, died 1977. There’s nothing there that tells about the chicken pox when he was seven, the first girl he kissed behind the schoolyard, going to war for his country, the friends he lost to disease and old age, the golden anniversary he shared with the sweetheart he finally married. And if you caught up to him in 1976, and asked him to tell you what he remembered, he would tell you things in great leaps and bounds, without filling in the mundane things that happened in between. And it’s the in between that matters most, it seems. In that quiet nothing “in between,” love has flared, and died, been proven and destroyed, a thousand times over. Those who have loved and lost remember the flash points, the high points where they argued, or they failed to meet some obligation, but they forget the little disappointments that eventually led to the end. In the “in between,” great things have been made, and discarded.
Ah, but I digress. Let us turn back to me and my great phenomenon of living outside of time. I remember meeting the man I love - and will someday marry - but it seems so far away, so long ago, that it hardly seems real. The only thing that is real is the now, the space between this heartbeat and the next. Life is so short, it’s pointless to believe in anything else. In that space between heartbeats I could live, or die. It’s only a matter of fate - and chance - that I should happen to live. He and I talk so freely about it being two years since the great decision was made, and it seems so… strange. It’s a feeling of vague discomfort, something I can never explain fully.
The thing that grounds me most these days is not his talk of years. That dubious distinction belongs to my dog. Many days I look at him, expecting to see the same dog I received in 1997, and I receive a mild shock when I see the gray creeping up on his muzzle, around his eyes. I watch him work the stiffness out of his knees on cold mornings, and I wonder when he turned into this old man, cheerful and loyal, but declining gradually into that dark night. I knew the facts of his life and eventual death, but it never sank in until that first day when I realized he was growing old. His hourglass works on a much shorter span than mine does. I still have a good many years to go, some thirty I hope, before I begin to fade. Ah, but how many years was he given? Ten? If so, then the majority of his time is past, and what, then, does he have remaining? The thought that someday I won’t have him to scold, to cuddle, to sing to, is hard to imagine.
Just as my past seems like smoke, hard to grasp and easy to brush aside, so too is my future. I have a vague idea of what will happen, but hope tempers my grief and I find myself involuntarily putting these things out of my mind. My cats, too, are no longer young. Five is nearly middle age, and I am suddenly terrified of surrounding myself with things that can die. That is part of the bittersweet responsibility of owning a pet, balanced against the joy such ownership brings. That horror causes me to put that future death safely out of reach, and I know that when that day comes, I will be injured as if I never knew that such an ugly thing as death existed in my world.
That is one of the disadvantages of living outside of time. And to be honest, I cannot dredge up anything positive. I feel shallow, transparent, lost. I fear time, for it will someday catch up to me and nothing good can come of it. Is that why I put it out of my mind, and live in years, leaps and bounds, instead of minutes, hours, and days? Does everyone remember only little deviations from the normalcy of their lives, without paying attention to the seemingly mundane things, such as bill paying, the flowers you cultivate, the morning routine you always follow? And when you’re gone - who will be there to remember, now that you have at last slipped through the cracks of time?
Albert, born 1904, married 1924, daughter born 1925, died 1977. There’s nothing there that tells about the chicken pox when he was seven, the first girl he kissed behind the schoolyard, going to war for his country, the friends he lost to disease and old age, the golden anniversary he shared with the sweetheart he finally married. And if you caught up to him in 1976, and asked him to tell you what he remembered, he would tell you things in great leaps and bounds, without filling in the mundane things that happened in between. And it’s the in between that matters most, it seems. In that quiet nothing “in between,” love has flared, and died, been proven and destroyed, a thousand times over. Those who have loved and lost remember the flash points, the high points where they argued, or they failed to meet some obligation, but they forget the little disappointments that eventually led to the end. In the “in between,” great things have been made, and discarded.
Ah, but I digress. Let us turn back to me and my great phenomenon of living outside of time. I remember meeting the man I love - and will someday marry - but it seems so far away, so long ago, that it hardly seems real. The only thing that is real is the now, the space between this heartbeat and the next. Life is so short, it’s pointless to believe in anything else. In that space between heartbeats I could live, or die. It’s only a matter of fate - and chance - that I should happen to live. He and I talk so freely about it being two years since the great decision was made, and it seems so… strange. It’s a feeling of vague discomfort, something I can never explain fully.
The thing that grounds me most these days is not his talk of years. That dubious distinction belongs to my dog. Many days I look at him, expecting to see the same dog I received in 1997, and I receive a mild shock when I see the gray creeping up on his muzzle, around his eyes. I watch him work the stiffness out of his knees on cold mornings, and I wonder when he turned into this old man, cheerful and loyal, but declining gradually into that dark night. I knew the facts of his life and eventual death, but it never sank in until that first day when I realized he was growing old. His hourglass works on a much shorter span than mine does. I still have a good many years to go, some thirty I hope, before I begin to fade. Ah, but how many years was he given? Ten? If so, then the majority of his time is past, and what, then, does he have remaining? The thought that someday I won’t have him to scold, to cuddle, to sing to, is hard to imagine.
Just as my past seems like smoke, hard to grasp and easy to brush aside, so too is my future. I have a vague idea of what will happen, but hope tempers my grief and I find myself involuntarily putting these things out of my mind. My cats, too, are no longer young. Five is nearly middle age, and I am suddenly terrified of surrounding myself with things that can die. That is part of the bittersweet responsibility of owning a pet, balanced against the joy such ownership brings. That horror causes me to put that future death safely out of reach, and I know that when that day comes, I will be injured as if I never knew that such an ugly thing as death existed in my world.
That is one of the disadvantages of living outside of time. And to be honest, I cannot dredge up anything positive. I feel shallow, transparent, lost. I fear time, for it will someday catch up to me and nothing good can come of it. Is that why I put it out of my mind, and live in years, leaps and bounds, instead of minutes, hours, and days? Does everyone remember only little deviations from the normalcy of their lives, without paying attention to the seemingly mundane things, such as bill paying, the flowers you cultivate, the morning routine you always follow? And when you’re gone - who will be there to remember, now that you have at last slipped through the cracks of time?