Time Keeps On Slipping...

The seasonal marker has not yet passed, but for all intents and purposes, summer is over: The kids start school again today.

Two of them seem excited about the prospects. The third, while showing some anticipation, is also in the process of grieving to the point of tears, for what lies ahead still does not quite compare to what must be left behind. The summer is over, and ultimately failed to live up to his expectations.

Reminiscent of the opening to Jackson’s “The Fellowship of the Ring,” nothing is permanent; everything slips away:

…I feel it in the water
I feel it in the earth
I smell it in the air
Much that once was is lost
For none now live who remember it…

I don’t know what that expectation is supposed to be – what remarkable experience supposedly “exists” out there that we would want to be forever immersed within, why everything we experience now in life (no matter how good or fun or momentarily fulfilling) still pales in comparison to it.

All we know is that nothing ever measures up, nothing ever endures. All good things come to an end, and that mortality makes them often feel less good.

I remember lying in bed the eve of my thirteenth birthday, and thinking that part of my life was over – forever after, I would be a teenager and beyond, my childhood left behind. Many children thrill to the idea; I was happy to be growing older and gaining the privileges of my maturation, but I also mourned what I was losing because I knew it was gone forever.

Connor had the same experience when he turned ten. The day before his birthday, Cherie told him that he would never be a kid again, that he would be turning ten and moving on with his life, and he suddenly burst into tears and sobbed for half an hour. He was teary even on his birthday; he wanted to move ahead without losing what he previously had.

I understood that feeling far too well, and it’s hard even for a 36-year-old man to deal with.