An Open Letter to Time: Please Stop!
It's not just the years that are short, now it's the days too.
Dear Time,
I have a bone to pick with you. Lately, I’ve been feeling sort of melancholy and jittery which make for a weird combination. At first, I thought it was a middle age thing, or menopause because let’s face it, when you’re over 45 everything gets blamed on menopause. But as I stare down the barrel of empty nest hood, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is your fault.
You, Time, are moving too fast and it’s making me crazy.
My youngest—my fourth and final child—is graduating high school, which makes no sense because I’m pretty sure it was only last week that I was sitting in a glider, rocking him to sleep and softly singing Baa Baa Black Sheep into his freshly shampooed scalp. My oldest is a college graduate, employed many time zones away from me, and my middle two are off at university, surviving without me and somehow eating meals I didn’t personally prepare. I still have a creepy bag of their baby teeth stashed in the back of my underwear drawer, but I can barely remember the little mouths they fell out of.
It’s like you’ve hit 3x speed—treating my life like a podcast you’re desperate to finish. What’s the rush? There’s nowhere in particular you need to be. All you’ve GOT is, well, yourself.
Don’t pretend you can’t slow down. We both know you can. I’ve seen you drag your feet. Remember those long-ago evenings when I was racing to get four small children through homework, bath, books, and bed? You moved like cold molasses. I silently begged you to speed up. I fantasized about the teenage years, when everyone would be self-sufficient and my time would once again belong to me.
(Go ahead, laugh. I was an idiot. I know this now.)
Where were you when I was toilet training them and begged you to fast forward past that hell to a time when they could wipe their own butts and leave no skid marks? THAT was when I needed you to move like the Road Runner (meep meep),not NOW.
I tried to trap you. I took photos, so very many photos. I’ve made albums with captions, then gave up and now just have a phone full of chronological memories, digital proof of your slippery departure. The moments I captured in those photos were “now” once. And now they’re “then”.
There were warnings of your wily ways and I heeded them. Remember the old lady in This Is Forty who said, “Don’t blink”? Well, I didn’t. I shoved toothpicks in my eyelids and used drops to keep my eyeballs from shriveling up and I didn’t blink, and still you managed to sneak past that foolproof method, your thumb smashing the increase speed button on the treadmill of my life.
All I want—truly, all I’m asking—is for you to pause, just for a second, right here, in this moment where my son is trying on his prom suit and asking what I think. Can we stretch that out? Can we loop it a few times?
Or how about a limited-use rewind button? I wouldn’t abuse it. I’d go back to the slow days and make them even slower. I’d let them run their sticky fingers through my clean hair and at bedtime say, “hey, how about we read Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bust a fourth time!” I’d trip over Polly Pockets and Thomas the Tank Engine figurines scattered across the kitchen floor while packing their lunchboxes for the bazillionth time and think “this is the epitome of awesomeness”.
I’ll tell you what, though. If I am lucky enough to have grandchildren, I’ll be ready for you. I know your tricks and I’ve got some of my own. I’ll stretch you by letting them stay up super late. I’ll bend you by taking as much off my own kids’ plates giving more of you to them. And I’ll never, ever again make the rookie mistake of rushing you along again- unless I’m seated next to a Chatty Patty on a long-haul flight, in which case: hit Mach 10 and end my suffering.
Yooouuurrrrrsssss Truuuullllllyyyyyy (that’s me demonstrating how easy it is to make things last a little longer if you try)
Gila Pfeffer
Love this so much!!!!
Just freaking stop it time.