Slightly Cursed

матрациAfter spending more than two years delivering newspapers at night, I’ve learned some very important life lessons.

There are many people in my area who should never be seen naked.

written by vic

Time.

Ticking away, faster each year. Too much gone by; too little left ahead. Relentless.

Life is a series of epiphanies. Like anything else, you have good ones and bad ones. But when we finally face that moment–when our vision clears, and pieces of the puzzle snap and lock into place in our heads–and suddenly we know there’s nothing left for us to do except take action and valiantly face what’s coming.

You can look back and say, “I was a fool! I wasted too much time!” But was any of it really wasted? The very concept demeans us. I prefer to think of it as time needed to learn and grow.

Everyone has a journey to complete. Birth, death, marriage, divorce, endings, new beginnings, change of any kind. It’s all cyclical. Our paths converge and diverge with others’ as we complete smaller cycles of our lives within the grander circle of birth to death. With every path we cross or join, lessons are both taken and given. Every experience is designed to teach, and to learn.

Sometimes, we cross another’s path and move on, only to converge with them again years later. Maybe the timing wasn’t right. There were lessons to be learned before the two paths could come together as one. Is the time wasted? Is it a test of patience bringing us one step closer to enlightenment?

There’s a right time for everything. That thing, that job, that lover. It may not have been right for you ten or twenty years ago, but it might be exactly what you need tomorrow. Maybe you knew what the right choice was all that time ago, but you were afraid or blinded by distractions. Or not ready. Perhaps the lessons in between were required first. Patience. Another lesson from Time?

We take our experiences with us as we forge our way through time. They are us, in part, in whole, inextricable. Time’s never wasted, no matter how trivially spent, no matter how successful the final outcome. We learn to use it wisely, to make the most of it. We learn when to break old cycles and start new ones. We move with it. Changing. Growing. It mends our broken hearts and softens the memories that cut deepest.

Time is a gift. One that should be used with wisdom and care. Time can’t be stolen, but it can be lost. Time is that most precious of commodities, valued most when none is left. When it’s lost it’s gone forever, but the memories and the lessons learned are always with us. Defining us. Making us who we are.

written by vic