"Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?"
~ Mary Oliver
I ran across this quote yesterday at Soule Mama's place...a blog which I adore! As summer is into its second half this quotation hit me...hard.
First I cannot believe that it is August...of the year 2011 no less.
Secondly I want a recount...there has got to be a mistake, somone sped up time when I wasn't looking!
Time seems to go so much faster than it did when I was a kid, faster than when I was first married, even faster than it did in my thirties. With each decade time's passage seems to be swifter and swifter.
Has it been this way since the beginning of time? Do all humans ponder the fact that summer used to stretch on almost forever and then suddenly it is gone in a blink of an eye?
After much thought there are a few reasons I think this phenomenon happens...I won't bore you with most of them but the one that really applies to me is...
Busyness.
When you are a kid you have little to do but to play, read, explore and do a few chores...time seems to flow at a slow easy pace with summer stretching out a lifetime.
Fast forward to young adulthood. You become more busy with work and/or school but without a big household to take care of, time still is under control.
Full blown adulthood! You have a passel of kids, a house to run, a job to go to, a garden to tend...laundry, dishes, groceries, bills. Not to mention any volunteer work and church. There are school supplies to buy, toilets to scrub, and animals to feed. Let's not forget the kids that need attention and the husband/wife that needs lovin'! Add that all up and there is not enough hours in the day to do them all properly.
Since there are not enough hours, those precious few seem to scream by at an alarming pace...before you know it you are dead and you never did get everything done!
So here is the conclusion I have come up with...
I can slow time down by clearing some things off my plate.
If we could go back to the simple summers of our childhood I think we could recharge and learn to slow down I don't mean completely ignore our responsibilities but really do we need to be so busy?
You know as well as I do we don't!
So here is my motto for August...
Slow down and savor the last few moments of summer.
Make it good to the very last drop!
Afterall we are not guaranteed another...
