We center our lives around hands that circle around endlessly, from three to twelve and nine to eleven. Day and night, it dances to its own heartbeat of rushed harmonies and hollow clicks. We are only given a specific amount of time with each other, limited revolutions around the sun- and it is never certain. That’s the terrifying thing about it, that time is never guaranteed.
We cannot control what will happen between five and six. We will never know how the next sunrise will look but we expect it anyway, in its radiant magenta hue of six AMs that can never be reincarnated.
Each day, life begins a new cycle of magic, the melody of pink-faced newborn babies screaming shrill cries of disapproval and utter confusion. Life will also cease to exist in the same day. Gray wrinkles and hands that have created and lived and thrived will morph into the hands of the clock they once lived by. And time will end, their hearts beating in sync with the monotone ticking of diminishing time. It is an unexplainable, powerful enigma that we will not ever begin to understand. Time is our only mystery, the substance that fills the gaps between life and death in order to conquer beauty and the power of it.
It is uncertain,
it is terrifying,
brilliant, dissolving and irreplaceable.
Today, someone will fight back waves of tsunami tears, eyes watering as they watch their bright-eyed blushing daughter walk down the aisle in her dream wedding dress. Someone will take their last breath on earth and exhale a life of both regret and contentment. Someone will take their first, inhaling hope and promises that will only swell and envelope them over time.
Someone has just tasted the sickeningly sweet taste of first love, with fingertips like bolts of lightning and a heart like a frightened alley cat, unsure and vulnerably afraid. And just around the corner, someone has just watched love fade away with empty arms and a burnt tongue, watching it disappear slowly- the way sugar dissolves into water and becomes absolutely nothing at all.
This morning, someone will hold their innocent baby boy swaddled in blue hospital garments- and blink- only to find him walking proudly across the stage, towering over everyone in his indigo cap and gown. A child will gaze up at their loving, sprightly mother only to lose track of time and suddenly will find themselves staring down at a platform resting in lonely cemetery grass.
Time is an insane concept, of waiting and rushing and the routine hum of life while we hope for a reality better than this. In times of crisis and in times of unbreakable power, time is the only insane concept that has ever possessed the capability to keep us sane.
Time is not infinite, nor is it fleeting, but with each thump, click, and tick, we are given chance after chance to shed the skin of the past and become brand new all over again.
We are only given a specific amount of minutes. To laugh. To cry. To kiss. To smile.
What will you do with yours?