Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
If you could turn back time, what would you do differently? I try to live life without regrets. I do my best to think of ways to feel blessed with the choices I’ve made and the life I have lived.
Occasionally, I’ll wish that I travelled more, or that I chose to be a bit more adventurous… but then I wonder if that would have taken me down paths where I didn’t meet my wife, or my best friend, or if I wouldn’t have had my kids.
I don’t know how the road not taken would have diverted me from the life I have? And so I don’t want to turn back time, but instead I want to appreciate the time I have. And that’s why I think I’m going to retire at the end of the next school year.
More on this later, but I wanted to put that out in the universe. I’m not turning back time, but I’m looking to make the time I have left a little more special.
My flight was at 7am Toronto time. I got up at 4:15, which is 1:15am Vancouver time. It’s now 8:30pm and I’m back home watching a movie. Then my alarm just went off to remind me that I haven’t blogged today. Other than two fifteen minute naps, I’ve been up 19 hours today and I’m staying up until my wife gets home in about an hour.
Because a 5 hour flight wasn’t enough to fill my day, I also did the Coquitlam Crunch with my buddy after he got off work, and I came home from that and did a small workout. So I must admit that right now I feel the effects of being up for this long. The hot tub and shower definitely didn’t help to wake me up at all.
So, I’ll finish writing and turn my movie back on that I started much earlier today. I won’t be surprised if my wife finds me asleep with the tv on. Yes, the day has been, and still is, long… but it has also been good. My suitcase is unpacked, the pool and hot tub chemicals have been topped up, and the garden has been watered. It’s amazing what you can do in a 19+ hour day!
Report cards go out tomorrow and Friday is the last day with staff to end the school year… and I’m done! Yes, I’ll be in next week, and there’s a fair bit to clean up before it’s officially summer, but I’m feeling checked out.
Not much left in the gas tank.
It started in June, people asking, “So, are you counting down to summer yet?” I probably heard that question a good 10-12 times in the first three weeks of June, and I always responded with a version of ‘Not yet’. I was being honest, I am not really someone who counts down to big events until they are very, very close.
Well, ask me today and my response is, “Absolutely, I’m counting down!”
It’s hard to believe that we are at the end of the school year. As I reflect back the year seems to be a blur.
The older I get the greater time warps. Looking forward, future events can seem so far away, then looking back the same amount of time can seem like it was just yesterday. A week to wait for something can seem like forever, yet a month can fly by… even if that month included a week that felt like forever.
I often wonder if our brains get affected by our age, not just from a metabolic standpoint but from our perspective. To a 10 year old 5 years is half of a lifetime. To a 50 year old it’s just 10%. So now that I’m in my late 50’s, a year can fly by as a somewhat insignificant amount of time.
It just reminds me to appreciate each day. To find in each day a moment worth remembering, with reflecting on. Or at least a moment worth enjoying. Take away these moments and the days, weeks, and even years slip by… almost unnoticed.
We live in time warps, where the perception of time fluctuates. If we don’t want time to disappear on us, it’s up to us to spend time wisely, and meaningfully.
We need to create moments, not seize them, but rather savour them, find joy in them, and cherish them.
My youngest is off on an adventure for the next 3 and a half months, and so my wife and I will be on our own in our big house from now until the day I return to work after the summer. I have to say that it feels a bit weird after 25+ years. The longest we’ve gone before this with both kids out of the house has been about 5 weeks.
My daughter will return from the trip and be back with us. Our oldest might be coming back as well depending on the school she selects for her next degree. So, we aren’t really empty nesters yet, and may not be for a while yet… but this is a wonderful first test of what’s to come.
Frankly, I’m perfectly ok with this being for just a few months and I’m happy to have our adult daughters who don’t mind being under our roof. In this era of soaring rent and house prices I imagine we aren’t the only ones who will see our kids staying with, and returning to, their parents for a large part of their 20’s. And although it will be nice to see what empty nest life will be like, there is no rush to get there on a full time basis.
Today marks a new era in my life. I’m going to my daughter’s friend’s wedding. This is the first one I’m attending from the next generation. While I don’t foresee my daughters getting married too soon, I recognize that after a long dry spell of not attending any weddings, this is something that will likely happen a bit more frequently in the coming years.
I’m reminded of my Firsts and Lasts post. This is a small first, it’s not my daughter getting married, but it’s a new era, a new stage in my life which I get to celebrate. And while I’ll have to wait a bit longer for one of my daughters to walk down the aisle, I see that this is the start of something new for my wife and I.
In a way, we are all time travellers. None of us experience time in the same way. We can be engaged in the same activity but for one of us time flies by and for another time seems to slow down. Have you ever been in the company of someone having way more or less fun than you? Do you think your perspectives of time were the same?
What’s the difference between time well spent and time poorly wasted? What is the experience of time for someone bored versus someone excited? What’s the experience of time for someone with a severe tooth ache waiting for a root canal versus someone terrifyingly waiting in line for a scary roller coaster ride?
Ask a 90 year old where the time has gone and compare that to a school-aged child wishing they were older and more independent.
Are we spending our time well or wasting it away? Ask a person at the end of a shift, a person at the end of a holiday, and a person at the end of a life. No answer will be the same.
Are we experiencing time or are we just letting time lapse? Either way we distort time, we alter how we perceive it, we quite literally time travel. We don’t just travel through time, and we don’t just live in the present. We worry about the past, and fret about the future. We also let the past hold us back, and let fear of the future restrict us. Or inversely we let the past inspire us, and the possibilities of the future motivate us.
We are constantly time traveling, so much so that we can’t really define the present, for we are so seldom actually living in the moment. For ever single person this moment in time is a completely different experience of time.
We are all time travellers experiencing time in our own unique way.
Had a couple ferry rides over the last two days. We always get reservations now, ever since our kids were 1 and 3, both sick, and we missed a ferry because it was too full. The next 2 hours waiting were awful, with two sick kids, and an hour and a half ferry ride after the extra wait. So reservations became a ‘must’ for us.
I think about how much time we spend getting from one place to another. Even with a reservation, we need to get to the terminal a minimum of 30 minutes before departure. And then there’s the 45 minute drive to the ferry, and the drive on the other side to our final destination.
There is a lot of waiting around on ferry trips. We bumped into people on the way over and had some nice chats yesterday, but for the most part the travel time goes slow. Trips home seem to take forever, and unpacking the car is never fun.
I look forward to the days when cars can fly like in the Jetsons. I hope that this happens in my lifetime. Forget about taking a ferry where my car is corralled onto a crowded boat, and the drive getting off the ferry is always in heavy traffic. I want to just set the autopilot in my car and watch an in-flight movie. No arriving to a ferry terminal early, no lineups. No reservations. Just a car zooming above the Georgia Straight, which is too long for an affordable bridge.
I started writing this in my head just over 7 years ago, in August 2017. We were all in Victoria, and had just finished moving Cassie into her tiny, very green, residence room for first year university.
I was sitting on her bed. As we chatted I thought about what a milestone this was… one of our babies was leaving the nest. I felt overly sentimental, and started thinking about all the ideas below. Over the years I’ve thought of different ways of saying this, always feeling like I’m not doing the ideas justice.
Today I decided that since you are already 25 and almost 23, I need to get these thoughts out. I’ve put off sharing this for too long. So here goes…
~~~~~
Firsts and Lasts
Dear Cassie & Katie,
I remember.
I remember the moment in the hospital when I first laid eyes on you; the first time I held you, and kissed your cheek. I remember your first smile, (that wasn’t just passing gas), your first laugh, and the first time you said, ‘Da-da’. I remember your first steps. There were so many firsts in those early days and, although they slowed, they still kept coming. From your first tooth to your first tooth falling out. From your first day at daycare to your first day at school. And from your first birthday to your last one as a teenager.
And so it is that I remember many firsts, but unfortunately I don’t remember too many lasts.
I don’t remember the last time you fell asleep on my chest or came running towards me and jumped unabashedly into my arms for a big hug. I don’t remember the last time we were walking together and you reached up to hold my hand. I don’t remember the last time I did a push up with you on my back, or the last time you danced on my feet, or the last time I gave you a piggyback.
And such is life that as we grow up together, parent and child, we carry with us these moments, momentous ‘first’ occasions, but we never know what other forgotten momentsdisappear as we get older. We remember the firsts, not the lasts. We savour the memories of so many special occasions, and we lament those things that we take for granted only after they no longer happen.
I won’t ever forget our Christmases in China and Spain. I will never remember the last story I read to you while you sat in my lap. Firsts… and lasts: Lifetime memories and forever forgotten interactions that fade away secretly. Photographs and movies that play in my mind as well as on film, photo paper, and digital jpg’s stay with me, like first school concerts, and graduations.
Meanwhile I’ll never remember the last time I fed you porridge, or tricked you into eating healthy baby food by burying it under a layer of dessert on the spoon. The fact that I can recall this interaction tells me the memories still resonate. Sure, it may not have been the last time, but I remember feeding you in your high chairs. I also remember the frustration of you trying to feed yourself. Sometimes it was your frustration because it was too much work, sometimes our parental frustration because feeding yourself took so long. But we wanted to give you your independence, and so we let you do it even when it would have been easier to just keep feeding you… and then you just didn’t need us to feed you anymore. It just happens… and after it happened one last time that time was not remembered.
It sounds a bit sad, and in a way it is, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’ve watched my two girls blossom into wonderful young women. I see you as adults that I don’t just love, but love being around. I’ve seen you both develop amazing work ethics, and carry with you a kindness to others that I want to see more of in the world. These things do not happen without forgotten lasts along the way.
And now as you head into adulthood I look forward to many more firsts. You might not dance on my feet anymore but I look forward to my first father daughter dance at your weddings. You might not fall asleep in my arms, but I look forward to being a grandparent and having your kids remind me of that wonderful feeling.
Along the way there will also be more lasts, and while I know they will come too, I will only think of them afterwards, unable to recall when such moments came to an end. Such is life. And so as I look to the future, I can’t wait for more first, and yes, more lasts too. Moments to cherish, milestones to achieve, adventures to experience. Your mom and I are excited to see what our amazing girls do next. We cherish you, your firsts, and your lasts.
My oldest kid turns 25 today. How did I get to be old enough to have a daughter that old? I only ask that question partially in jest, because there is a part of me that is really baffled about how fast time flies by. I remember holding her in my arms for the first time, her first words, and her first steps. Did all that really start a quarter century ago?
With age, time goes by faster. I think it has to do with reference to the length of our lives. To a 10 year old, 5 years is half of a lifetime; to a 15 year old, 5 years is a full 1/3 of a lifetime. To a 60 year old, 5 years is 1/12 of a lifetime. So that same 5 years is relatively shorter as we get older, and represents less significance to our overall lifespan.
I think about how much my life changed from ages 26-31… I moved to BC, met my wife, started my career in education, got married and bought a house. Then we started a family and the next 5 years are a blur of joy, stress, and core memories of our kids having first experiences.
In comparison, the last 5 years have felt a lot more like status quo, and have seemed to fly by a whole lot faster. I can remember the excitement of starting a new school year, and now it’s already just a week away from the Christmas holidays… where did the last 3 and a half months go?
I remember my mother-in-law saying to me that she didn’t know where the time went, and how she felt that she was a young person in an old body. I think of that now because about 26 years later I realize that I’m almost the age she was when she told me that. Is this just a cycle of life that the older we get, the more we recognize that time speeds up for us?
Today my oldest daughter turns 25. This is a reminder to me that I’ve got to value the time I have, and to spend it wisely… no matter how fast it seems to fly by.
