Time is my enemy.
It pushes me into doing things I don't want to. When I have to meet a deadline, time brings it closer and closer, pressuring me into doing what I have to do to meet that deadline. I can't choose when I will do something--time forces me to do it arbitrarily. When I am eager to do something, time brings it to me slowly and then rushes me through it before I am ready to be done with it.
Time keeps me from doing all the things I do want to do. Time limits my reading, my piano playing, my shopping, my visiting. When I want to go on and on doing the things that make me happy, time runs out and I must stop and move on to what time next requires I do.
Time limits my contact with the people I love. Time keeps track of my phone calls and cuts them off before I am ready. Time sweeps away my vacations and holidays before I am ready for them to be gone. Time makes my husband go to sleep early when I want to talk, and it wakes him up early too. Then it dictates when he leaves the house and when he is able to return.
Time makes me tired because it goes so quickly when I read in bed and it causes my alarm to wake me before I have gotten enough sleep. I never get enough time to sleep because time is greedy and keeps itself all to itself. It rations my sleep and I'm always hungry for more.
Time takes my children from me. It passes without stopping and they grow and then they leave to spend their time in other pursuits. Time makes them forget many of the precious memories that we have forged together. Time separates us inexorably, taking them to other places and among other people. As time passes, these things must happen. If time were to stand still, could I freeze the best moments to hold forever?
Time hurts my body. It takes away my youth and brings me ever closer to my death. Its passing steals my flexibility, my energy, my hair color, my smooth skin, my clear eyes, my strong body.
Time takes away my grandparents and it will take away my parents too. It passes unstopping, leading them all to their old age, taking away their good health, their dignity, their independence and freedom, and enforcing their eventual death.
Time, this week, has run out for my young niece. Like a thief it has stolen her future. Like a dictator it has trampled over her wish to live. Time is my enemy because it keeps me from seeing her again for so very, very long. Time stands between me and togetherness with her and all the family I have lost to death. Time takes away my clear memories. Time will throw a blanket over the hole she has left in our lives. I don't want this hole to be disguised. I don't want to forget anything. I know I will see her again, but time makes me wait. Time will force me to be old and slow and diminished and dead before I can see again Carmen and all those others whom I love and who will have passed, or who have already passed.
So today I am not afraid of poverty or loneliness or even death or pain. Because I could stand all of these if time were not involved. But time sticks its pushy head in my business and makes all of the bad things last for an unspecified duration that I cannot control or stop. It makes the good things speed away. I want to grab those and keep them in the now. But it whisks them away farther out of my reach as every minute, hour, day, month and year passes. Unkindly, it slows down for that which is undesirable or painful. No one can stop it. No one can hold it fast. It just goes on and on, with its own will never challenged, always getting its way. This is why time is my enemy.
