Looking Out From the Time Machine

The clothes are different, hairstyles change and the blur of daily activity seems to go on forever, but eventually you realize that whenever you stop to notice, there you are.

You are standing in the moment with the people that are important to you at that time all around. Soon things will change and some of them will be gone possibly never to return again. The people, places, and activities that are so immensely important right now may hold little value in the blink of an eye.

There are times when something or someone is lost and you reach for them trying desperately to hold on to the past. You find yourself stretched out drawn toward the evolving future that is your destiny while facing backwards looking into the moments you long for as they fade into memory.

Those who let go are immediately pulled back into the present and those who refuse to relinquish their grip are dragged through a blur of years never regaining the past and not fully experiencing and enjoying the events of present time. They leap through time and find themselves on the later side of life wondering how they got there and what happened during their living years.

You turn your head toward your children and watch them grow before your eyes. What were once screaming happy children are now much more serious teens and soon they are adults on their own raising a family and aging, maturing into what you created so many years before.

The loved ones in your life age, wither and slowly disappear. This is the natural process of living, but it is always sad nonetheless. You think back of those long passed and while doing so others are suddenly gone. The memories are still there, but they don't come into thought as often as they used to.

Times and people always seemed much more simple and understandable in the days gone by. There is an inner fondness that warms like a glowing spark when you are surrounded by things and thoughts of your early years. It is then that you finally realize how much a part of you these past events and moments really are.

The time machine of your life is winding down. Although the years still crank by in a steady progression they seem so much shorter. As they become fewer their value grows until time becomes the most important thing.

However, the inexorable process of aging continues. The body begins to change right before your eyes. The muscles lose tone and the skin wrinkles. Soon the people and things you have come to rely upon begin to leave you. You must face into the unknown in a way that has never been demanded of you before.

There is a finite essence to the gift of living.

And in those moments just before you depart the time machine the entire process rewinds. Your mind courses through the people, places, and moments that were the substance of your experience in living. These are who you are and what you were. No other person on this planet can recall them as you can. The sum of all of the feelings and experience are a living energy beyond description.

It is and was your life. Then you step out of the time machine.