Time
Is Relative
“You
would measure time the measureless and immeasurable. You would adjust your
conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and
seasons. Of time, you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and
watch its flowing. Yet the timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness and
knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream. And
that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the
bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.”
Kahil
Gibran (The Prophet, 1923)
Once I
passed the 70-year mark on my chronological calendar, time took on new meaning.
All of us, I’m guessing, begin at some point to look at the stranger in the
mirror and ask, “Who is that? How did that happen?" For most of my life, I
lamented my skinny legs; I yearned for legs like Angelina Jolie, not Twiggy.
Now, my face has taken over that designated flaw. I guess that’s why so many of
us turn to cosmetic surgery or at the very least, Botox. In 2018, the last year
for which there are statistics, 17.7 million Americans underwent cosmetic
surgery, 5.8 million for the purpose of reconstruction. I’ve considered it myself
I confess.
Time is
an interesting concept. On the one hand, it seems endless, and, when we are
young, to grind by at a snail’s pace. As we age, it appears to speed up, and by
the time we are in our 70’s it’s whizzing by at light speed. Gibran wrote the
prophet before quantum physics theorized that time is actually boundless, and
the idea of dividing it into segments of months and years was invented by
humans based upon moon phases and seasonal changes caused by our planet’s
rotation around the sun. In theoretical physics, time does not move in a
straight line like we have graphed it, but like all facets of the universe, in
an arc. It bends, sometimes back on itself.
Bottom
line is, we don’t have a good grasp on what time is or how it affects us, but
we do know that we live in flesh and blood bodies. And like all living things,
we go through stages of development. A tomato seed, for instance, may lie
dormant in the soil for a long time. Eventually, it germinates and sends a
small green shoot up toward the warmth of the sun. From there it grows and spreads
and sends out blooms which become fruits. Once its cycle has been lived, the
plant slowly stops efficiently conducting photosynthesis, and loses strength
and color. When the seasons change, and the earth becomes cold, the plant withers
and dies, but only after it has put out seeds for renewing itself. Some plants,
sequoias being one, live for hundreds of years, and others, like tomatoes, only
one season. Living things are time-limited, but renewable.
Yesterday,
my friend Isie mentioned hearing a podcast about the stages of retirement—after
6-15 years of imagining and anticipating what retirement will be like, we enter
the first stage. That stage, which lasts about a year, is characterized by
feelings of freedom—relieved from all the stress and structure of work, we feel
like we’re on permanent vacation. We pack in all the things we thought were
missing when we had to work every day. The next stage is Reorientation, which lasts
2-15 years, in which we try to fill our time with “worthy” projects. We
volunteer, we repair our house, replant our gardens, clean out our closets, and take
care of all the neglected areas of life that work precluded. But somewhere in
there, we may also begin to feel useless, disoriented, tired and bored. Maybe
even depressed. This is like the tomato plant that is withering. Some of us successfully
pass through this period by reinventing ourselves; we undergo transformation
into a brand-new life—like the sequoia, we put out new needles at the top and keep on
growing. Others of us sit down in front of the TV or the Ipad and only get up
for meals. Fortunately, seventy-five percent of retirees report being “happily
retired.” (source: AgeWave, Ameriprise Financial and Harris Interactive)
We
humans are cut from the same cloth. No one likes to look or feel old, even
though as the body ages, the spirit comes alive in an awesome new way. That new
life is deeper, more compassionate, and more content for the most part. It’s a
good idea to allow yourself some time and space for making this passage so you
can enjoy it fully. If you can do that, your spirit will arrive at the end,
ready for resurrection.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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