weekend

there was a point when i was letting the happy-love-day plant stakes dry when i took a look at this spread on my table


and it reminded me so much of this

and then i was caught up in a sense of nostalgia. once again realizing how quickly time passes us by. how cute she looked with bangs. how i chopped her hair to chin length after this and now it's almost to the middle of her back. how much i miss chubby baby thighs. i was struck by my own lack of awareness of time.

such an obscure concept, time.

einstein was really onto something with all that relativity stuff. after all, as i heard it said somewhere once before, "the days are long but the years are short". how true that is, in every phase of life. the projects and commitments may - today - seem overwhelming and unconquerable. tomorrow they will seem a little less so. in a month, the difficulties fade, and in a year or two, they are almost forgotten until a sight or a taste or a sound or a smell draws us into our memory and brings them back to the forefront of our mind.

not so long ago, in a city far away, i was contemplating my current path. the return to school was frightening. intimidating. difficult. and yet, at the same time it was liberating and exciting. invigorating and addicting. when deliberating my course, a friend said to me

"it's only four years. the time is going to pass no matter what. at the end of it, you'll either have your degree or you wont."

he was right, of course. it feels like yesterday. have i really been here three years? am i really about to graduate? it feels like a different lifetime, and yet, strangely, the same one.

such an obscure concept, time.

so i started wondering. what have i done with this time? all the days that i will never get to relive? the moments that flee and leave behind happy memories in their wake(hopefully). and then i started listing.

in the last 3.5 years since a major life change, i have

• traveled to chicago twice
• road tripped to 4 states
• completed 3/4 of my graduate gemologist diploma
• completed (essentially) my undergraduate degree
• learned introductory latin ballroom dance and participated in a competition
• learned to rock climb, taken ski lessons, run several 5K races
• done geologic mapping in nevada
• started learning to play the guitar
• begun learning DSLR photography
  
• participated in a singles group at church, holding a major leadership position for over a year
• loved and lost
  
• and become more comfortable in my own skin than ever before

there is more, i am sure. but this is still a decent list for less than 10% of my life. i was on a mission, a conquest of sorts, to discover myself. to think and dream and plan and play while traveling that path which connects the us we are with the us we want to be. i don't need it any more. i'm happy. i'm at peace. my priorities are sure, without needing to be defined by the limitations of words.

such an obscure concept, time.

it's a crazy connection, i realize, to make from a set of bamboo skewers armed with foam board hearts. but hey, that's me. i see these things in the darndest places.