the passage of time

 Almost mid September. The summer is winding down, I'm seeing school buses once again. The mums and pumpkins have appeared at the farm stands. Soon, that is all that will be available at those stands, although a few will spring up with Christmas trees. The way things have been going I expect to see them in October. This is the first year for all of my grandchildren to be in college. Mark, the oldest is scheduled to graduate this year! He will have completed the course of instruction in three years. That is due to having taken College level courses while in high school. The girls, Shyann and Morgan are just beginning their academic journey. Now I don't just notice the passing of the seasons, I notice the passage of time. I believe you have to reach a certain point in your life before you begin to understand that, and to appreciate it. Time is far more than minutes, hours, days, months or even years. Time is a passage in itself. A progression toward the unknown, best met with resolve. It is only in the method of resolve that we differ. 

 We have to get comfortable with time. That is accomplished in many ways, different ways, and is a bit different for everyone. I do think most of us concern ourselves with what we leave behind; to a degree. Some use their accomplishments as a vehicle to achieving peace with time. I find myself a bit uncomfortable with that. Perhaps that stems from not having a feeling of any great accomplishment, I feel like I have done what was necessary, perhaps a bit more, but certainly nothing to be remembered for, no heroic deeds, no accumulation of fame or wealth. Noteworthy is what I'm thinking about. I do believe all of us want to be remembered. Certainly our immediate family will remember us, for a generation or perhaps two. but I have no expectation beyond that. The anonymity of time will engulf us all sooner or later. I find myself writing down thoughts more than memories. I'm thinking more may be interested or entertained by that rather than memories. Memories unless shared in the first person are just stories. That is something I am keenly aware of. Some of my memories have already been lost to time and all I can share is the story. That happens with the passing of our friends and family, when we are left behind. 

 I guess I'm thinking that I have reached the mums and pumpkins stage of time. It presents as a marker. There is still plenty to come, Thanksgiving looms large on the horizon. How fitting that is when taken in a larger context. I have a lot to be thankful for over the passage of time. Time has treated me well. Still I feel like I have to pack some of that time away, relegate it to history, it is what was, not what is. That is the hardest lesson of time for us to grasp. Just my thought. The older we become the more we wish to embrace the past, the familiar, a place where we know the outcome. And in our thoughts and dreams the outcome is often different. That is the understanding of time. Time isn't the constant that we believe it to be when we are young. It isn't linear at all. The timeline of our lives is measured in memory, our memory and the memory of others. The prayer being one day our story will be told.