Time Gentlemen Please

Time is a funny old thing. At one moment it can crawl along like a sun-scorched snail and in the next breath flash by faster than a budgie with its tail on fire. It’s a fickle animal that I can’t quite get my head around. It was Christmas the other day wasn’t it? And yet there are already daffodils sprouting in the churchyard. The days are getting longer and soon it will be spring but I’m still waiting for the snow to arrive. When I think about it, I’m not really quite sure where it’s gone or where it goes except to acknowledge that these past few months have been a bit of a blur. My son is almost hitting three months old (how did that happen?) and we’re rapidly approaching February when I’m only just starting to get my head around the year ending with an eight instead of a seven. Time has simultaneous crept up on me, fondled in my pocket for my hardly bulging wallet and run off into the distance like a hooting loon. It’s pilfered something I can never get back but I’m not really sure how much I’ve lost or how much it matters. Some people say that time flies but only, it seems, when you’re having fun. Others say it’s of the essence but I have to confess that I’m not really sure what that means. Sometimes you can kill it and it’s rumoured you can lose it but I’ve also heard that it waits for no man, which must mean it’s always late for something. It simultaneously ravages our bodies and heals all wounds but I’m not really sure how that’s supposed to work. Time really is a dichotomous beast.

The writer of Ecclesiastes said that there’s a time for everything, which must be true I guess, and Albert Einstein told us that ‘the only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once,’ which pretty much covers it.

The only thing I can conclude from all this rambling is that there’s a lot about time that I don’t really know and, to try to avoid tying my poor brain in ever decreasing knots, I’m not going to bother worrying about trying to wrestle out its deep dark secrets. Time’s a mystery and a puzzle that’s probably not worth studying too closely if you want to live a fulfilling life. Mother Teresa summed it all up rather wonderfully and, so, to avoid wasting anymore of your time, I’ll leave you with her wise words:

‘Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.’