Maddening Years of Haste

And it was January and it was December, another year.

I remember precisely when it was when the years started spinning out of control. The year was 1980, and I was in class four (yeah, old, I know…) Before then I guess I had no sense of the calendar though I knew it existed. Happy days (some not so happy) simply merged into more happy days, and Christmas and New Year seemed like wonderful holidays that came and went once in a lo……ng while. Besides, these two holidays were really fun, what with all the night events, singing, visitors, peace, safety…

But class four changed all that. I guess I grew up... My little brain suddenly snapped and I understood the concept of time, the calendar, the inevitable and now hasty progression from January to December, the meaning of a year. Things that before got their meaning from events such as school opening day, exams, closing day, holidays etc, were now represented by a number or a word on the calendar. And all of a sudden a year was not so long any more.

I remember it so clearly because it was such a monumental development. My school year in class four seemed to speed past on an unkind mission to usher me into the world of time and rush madness. Hitherto I had been a happy-go-lucky child and my seniors were the custodian of my time. But now my time had acquired an identity, and it was all mine, and it was slipping very quickly through my fingers, through that hour glass.

Well, the upside was that I was hurtling through primary school, a place I very much wanted to leave behind and move on to high school. The down side was that I had been initiated into a club of those who understood time and its hasty mission to turn us all into worrying adults and eventually past tense (funny ha ha!) And now I have the years to prove it. That little girl of class four is no more just a few short years later; in her place is an adult reluctantly moving on to middle age and struggling to gracefully surrender the things of youth. 

I’m sure you are older than I was in class four and so I don’t need to tell you the years have gained new momentum ever since, each new year moving even faster than the last. Sometimes I am convinced the Deity speeds up the time without us ever realizing it; that He makes our clocks seem to move normally while in fact we jump hours, even days forward at a time. Then in the end we are left wondering, ‘where did all the time go? Or ‘oh look at the time!?’, While all along He looks down on us and smiles, drawing us ever faster and closer to the end of time.

So as we embrace and plan the New Year, let’s just remember to adjust our pace because you don’t need me to tell you it will move even faster than the last one and we don’t wanna be caught flatfooted. .. You got to increase your speed if you want to move in harmony with the universe and the world of time, because believe me, it’s not moving at your pace. You just gotta keep up…

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