Time Flies When You're Driving By

I love when poignancy peers in from the last place you'd expect it to. As I thoughtlessly take pictures of a favorite street as I drive down it, I get struck with the notion that life keeps picking up speed. As a young child, time goes so slowly that each night, the idea of bedtime evokes panic in nine out of ten children. (Do you like my statistics? Very scientific, there.) Eight hours of time is an eternity! It is a prison sentence that will be repeated daily. 

In high school, classes dragged and winter lasted for about 19 months. I learned how fast time could fly though, every Friday night quickly morphed into Monday morning homeroom, and every June break immediately became back-to-school shopping on the first of September. 

In college, the pace of life picked up. Studying for midterms blended in with studying for finals, and it felt like we were all packing for our semester breaks far too frequently. Three months of work earned three credits per class and then that class, no matter what the subject, became personal history. Planning a weekend getaway instantly turned into scrap-booking those pictures you took months and months to develop and remembering how great that weekend was. That impromptu drive across four states will never happen again.

Post-college life, and weeks blending together turn into months. I appreciate every season, even in the painfully icy cold, because it's life is short and I know I will yearn for it in a moment when it's ninety seven degrees and my mascara can only drip down my cheeks. I don't dread the Spring when my eyes will itch, and my sneezes go on for days, because I can ignore an itch here and there, but I choose not to ignore bright green leaves and budding flowers and my re-aquaintance with flip-flops.

My dogs seem to get older in record time, and that is without the milestones that I will have slapping me in the face every day with children. No first words, steps, fights, loves, tuitions, marriages... Each decade quantifies so drastically, that I am actually worried that thirty will turn into forty five will turn into seventy will turn into a little old woman rocking in her chair warmly reminiscing on her past ninety years of regret and love and pride and happiness. There's no use in worrying though, it's coming. I may be at thirty miles an hour now, but the trees keep getting blurrier and the speed is picking up.