Time

 Time - What is it? 

We all live and die by it, yet we have no idea what it actually is. 

Time is something that we can set an alarm for so it wakes us in the morning after a tortured sleep, to remind us the meat in the oven is ready, or to meet our best friend in the local coffee shop, but it's also the bane of our lives.

Time steals our youth from us all. It makes our once crystal clear and smooth skin, become riddled with wrinkles that seem to grow in number by the hour. Our thick and wavy hair becomes thin and brittle and for some, it disappears forever. 

Our razor-sharp mind so quick to remember faces and familiar sounds becomes slower with each passing day, leaving us unaware of what is actually happening around us and clouding our thoughts with confusion and frustration.

Our sight loses the ability to focus properly over the age of forty or so, meaning we have to wear visual aids like spectacles or contact lenses just to read the label on a ketchup bottle or read our favourite book. Some go completely blind robbing them of the visual wonders of this beautiful world.

Sound becomes dull to even the sharpest of hearing, sometimes filling our ears with the mind-numbing irritation of Tinnitus, but worse still, some of us are left completely deaf unable to hear the world around us or the words of  loved one saying, 'I love you.'

When we are young, just a child, time seems to take forever. We can all remember those long summer holidays away from school that seem to last forever but as we get older time appears to pass faster until we get so old that days become weeks and weeks become months in what seems like a blink of an eye. In reality, of course, time is the same for young and old so why does it fly by when we are older? It's not fair. 

Time is not fair. 

We are told to treasure life, and so we should. The old saying of, 'Life is short,' is true. In the bigger picture of the planet earth, the galaxy and the universe, human beings, us, exist for a mere blink of a cosmic eye. We are born, live and die in a micro-cosmic nanosecond, but what a wonderful thing life is.

In all the books you read, they tell us to make memories because those are the things that make living so wonderful or so horrible for us all. We have to have the bad memories along with the good memories, only could it be that that way of thinking is wrong? What about the millions of people around the world that suffer from dementia of one kind or another? Do their lifelong memories mean anything to them as their brain dissolves away? So maybe the memories aren't as important as having somewhere safe to live and be looked after?

I am not in the twilight of my life. Time has done its thing with me and I could cease to be at any time. My face is so wrinkled, I don't recognize myself in the mirror anymore. My eyes have lost their sparkle. What's left of my hair is grey and whispery. My body is damaged in so many ways and I can no longer stand up straight. I find it difficult to lift my head just to see where I am going. I spend my days sitting in a chair looking at a TV. I couldn't tell what I'm watching because I fall asleep so easily and my mind drifts from one thing to another.

Sometimes my mind takes me back to my youth and do you know what I miss more than anything in my ripe old age? Young love. Young passion. Young firm, excited, passionate bodies. The thought of sex. The soft kiss after a first date. I know we can do that when we are older but it's not the same. When we're young our bodies are firm and our minds are not corrupted by life. 

I can no longer read a book because my eyesight is so poor and my hands can no longer turn the pages or hold the book steady. I can't listen to audiobooks or music because I'm almost completely deaf. My body is so weak it doesn't support my head anymore.

I've had enough and I want to close my eyes and drift away. I've never believed in a god but now I'm at that point in my life where every second counts, maybe there is life after death and I don't think it will be long now before I find out. I hope so because living like this is not living anymore

Time. 

Time is a bastard and I hate it.