TIME SENSITIVE

(see all photos via Flickr photobox in right margin)

Time flies when you’re having fun.
Time marches on.
Time waits for no one.
Time heals all wounds.
Time is of the essence.
A stitch in time saves nine.

OK. Can you tell I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of time? Like most things I dwell on, it makes no sense to me. Yeah I know that 60 seconds = 1 minute, 60 minutes = 1 hour, 24 hours = 1 day etc. etc. Logically and factually, I know these measurements don’t change. Or do they?

They sure seem to. I mean, I just spent 13 days with my son Andy, and it seemed as if I just picked him up three days ago. Today, our last day together, we spent nine hours traveling from Florida to Arizona that seemed to take an hour at most. In contrast, a nine-hour day at work can seem like an eternity. It’s peculiar to me how vastly different these two scenarios can be when they’re actually the same, time wise. And it always seems to me that time is working against us. We want the work day to speed up and we want the vacation day to slow down yet they’re traveling at the same speed.

And so in the blink of an eye, my precious vacation with Andy has come and gone. So many wonderful thoughts and memories. I wonder which ones he’ll remember years and years from now? It’s weird, but I remember the oddest of moments when my dad came to visit me. My sister and I talk about this a lot. A simple sentence our dad told us, or the smell of his apartment or room, or the dessert from a now defunct restaurant. And I remember two weeks flying by and WHAM, it was over and tears were shed.

Some things never change. I still cry at goodbye. I don’t’ want to release Andy from my hug. I don’t want to give him back to his mother. I’m supposed to be the strong one, yet there we are, the two of us on the plane and dear old dad is crying and his son is consoling him saying, “It’s gonna be OK, daddy.” Moments like that I won’t soon forget.

I also won’t forget his fits of laughter, our father-son chats, his expression upon seeing a thong bathing suit at the beach, his ability to eat a piece of chocolate cake bigger than he is, his answering math problems that I didn’t learn until I was 15. Oh heck, I could go on and on. Perhaps the 9 ½-year-old genius summed it all up by answering my question, “Andy, how’s your vacation going?” “Daddy, this is the best vacation I’ve ever had.” Yes, time marches on. But no matter how many days, weeks, and years go by, I’ll always have THAT as a priceless memory.