#thestruggleisreal

Time is a heartless bastard.

There you go.
This will be the subject of our discussion today.

Time dances about us, embraces us, whisps a curl to our face where it lingers and disappears just as we lean in to its touch. And it feels nothing, only continues in it's long slow dance that passes us by in a blink of its eye.

Okay, perhaps some backstory...
When I was a small child I didn't go to anyone for emotional troubles, if I was sad I dealt with it unless it was asked of me. As I got older I didn't (and scarcely ever, even now) even mention them then, if I even realize I have any. Yet there was one concern that would occasionally, namely on my birthdays, send me on a slow walk from my bed down the stairs to where my mother was sitting while gaming, typing, socializing, or whatever on the computer. I would sit with my head on the arm of the old brown sofa next to the desk and explain that I didn't want to grow up. Not so much that I didn't want to grow older, I just didn't want time to pass- I didn't want the moments I lived in to pass by without being able to revisit them or hold on to them. This basically troubled me from the day I was three and my mom told me I could only have a dalmatian puppy when I moved out on my own. The idea that the moment and life I had right then would be snapped up and away without my consent was quite too much for me to bear- and to compensate I would keep most everything I owned. While nowadays I'm more of a minimalist, back then I quite literally never got rid of anything unless I gave it to a friend that needed it. Holding on to things and the memories tied to them was my way of keeping those moments.
I don't remember what my mom said, she laughed mostly and still mentions it with laughter to this very day, yet just telling her helped me to go back to bed with a calmer feeling. (...I would then proceed to cry myself to sleep, but whatever, ha!)
and for the most part I was reconciled to the passing of time. To things growing older. I even came to be enamored of it. In fourth grade I sat in a swingset at the country home of my babysitter- beautiful evening, grass was green, sun was at the stage of setting in which the shadows are long and cool yet the sun is still warm on your face, sky not yet given to any color but blue yet it's washed over in a warm tone that blends perfectly with the rays of light. Was the sort of evening you breathe in deep and hold onto the air for as long as you may. Being the odd sort of solemn kid, you know, the sort that says things as if they mean something instead of spitting out sayings as if I'm apologizing in case they seem pretentious as I do now, I said something to the tune of"You know, there will never be a moment like this again. This day, this hour, this minute! Even as I speak it is changing, it will never come again, there will never be another like it. And the more you try to hold on... the quicker it leaves." My babysitter's son, a five years younger than me, sat opposite me in the swing, and didn't understand a word of what I said. As such I had to explain the phrase multiple times thus ruining the moment. I wonder if things only seem deep the first time they are realized... I haven't found anything 'deep' in this world for years, it's all been realized before. I have given way to a new sort of wonder, yet still... *wish* <--- that, believe it or not, was a typo, I meant to type "*sigh*" ...I chose to keep the typo. Freudian wish? moving on, some wonders can never be relived, ideas cannot be unlearned, and a well once dug cannot be filled.
Regardless, I went from frightened and despondent to enamored. Such an elusive thing as time possesses all the charms of any novel mistress and we're forever stuck with a one-night stand- yet instead of being hurt we chase after it even harder.

Years pass and my feeling side is locked away hardcore. Goes with the INTP personality, feeling so intense that it becomes buried and protected rather than dealing with it. Just as well, I needed the ability to move through the day with a cold logic and will to survive. And that I did, that I did. Or thought I did. But that's another story. Yet I forget the issue and think all is well.
Until college.
Last december (the last time I posted) I remember distinctly the realization that things grow older when you're not around being the instigator for homesickness in general. I never get homesick. I always wanted to leave home. Wanted to be there, yet wanted to leave as well. Yet my parents aged- more gray hair, more wrinkles. My beloved pets aged. And aging means that time is running out. My grandparents and entire family is aging without me there to hold on to every minute of their life and cherish it.

what brought on this onslaught this time around was snooping about in the blue bedroom of my grandparents' house this evening. I found a biography my cousin had written of my grandmother in 2005- I laughed at the stories, at the way my young at the time cousin wrote it, and regretted that I didn't know many of the stories that were mentioned in the biography. Even with my own grandmother I am shy about asking things such as "how did Papa propose?" or "how did you meet him?" and other such things. I just don't want to be a bother. And even though I'm here for the full week my to-do list from school is stacking sky-high and the weight of it is beginning to crush me- I feel as if I can't move and every moment spent breathing is one spent procrastinating. I want to say 'SCREW IT!' and toss my macbook out the window along with my italian-english dictionary (DAMN. That's the other thing I have to do this week...) my script for the play and any hope of becoming a graphic designer. Even then my mother is here and my mind still wouldn't be as exposed as to ask grandma such things in front of her.
...this really makes no sense.
...yet it's sadly true.
Moving on, I was already a bit on the "...well, here we go again with time passing and so on and so forth..."
...then I found a notebook with my cousin Katie's name in it. I opened it up and found memories of her grandma had- while the first date in it was marked 1999 the first page was all about Katie (who is now 25) when she was a baby. I looked down and saw another for Libby. I picked up Libby's and... there was mine. While it's only about 30 pages of the notebook, reading about moments I barely remembered and that grandma had referenced many times just... Well, I try to hold on. And here was a notebook filled with holding on. Grandma held on for me. As I read the pages I was filled with such love for her and the care she put to it, the stories, the memories...
And then, as close as I come to it nowadays, I just lost it.
Okay, exaggeration. Yet I cried. And in such instances hot tears just start to come, I look into the nearest mirror, and ah, begin talking to myself.
...because when it comes to it, I'm the only one I can be me too and not feel like I have to apologize.
My friend Rachel I can go to, yet sometimes feel as if I have to apologize to for my wordiness and thoughts. I have a boyfriend now, yet caring about what he thinks still leaves me waiting for him to text first or worrying that I'm being a bother. Ha, certainly do not need to worry him with this onslaught of feeling, relationship is only a month in, and I'm still at the stage of being nervous about if he likes me or not when he's not around. Yet when he is around I feel safe in that instance... I just can't quite perceive someone staying interested in me. I fought to gain my self worth and I have it, I love it! Yet I cannot perceive other valuing me... Anyhow, that's a learning process.

I am now too far from the initial reaction to give an adequate ramble...
so...


...perhaps the double post of bothers with time will help express what sort of worry this has been and undoubtedly will be on my life. Has been. Seems to have always plagued me. I wish I could be rid of it. While it does seem to be lifting I can't help but wonder if it will be replaced by and by- with new moments and new stages of life. At the moment I'm fully reconciled with moving forward...
...yet not with everyone else moving with me. While my time can pass I suppose I will never want the time of others to pass...
Yet I shall learn, as I always do.

However still, this has been an issue for the past...
I only hope I can be rational about it in the future.