The Clock Keeps Ticking

Time.

Time is a funny thing because it moves really slowly, but also, really fast.

This idea of time, this “thing” that is  solidified in the universe, so finite, so concrete…it is also so beyond our control.

Time plays a huge factor in our life, because it is a constant.

Time was stolen from us.

The pandemic stole time from us.

The time spent in the early months of Hailey’s life worrying, crying, fearing, and diagnosing, is time I can never get back. It is time that when I think about, it makes me sad.

I want time to slow down. As I watch my son grow up, it feels like it is happening too fast. As he hits each milestone, I wonder, will I experience this again? I don’t want to only feel or experience these moments once, yet, I fear every time something new happens, I will not be able to witness it again.

Yet, I don’t feel the same way for my daughter.

I want time to speed up for Hailey. I want the struggles that she faces every single day to end. I want to know will there be a treatment? A cure?

Only time will tell.

But the clock keeps ticking- the second hand moves forward, the minutes turn into hours, weeks, months, and years. While we see other families growing, thriving, and evolving, I wonder, will ours, too?

It is almost like time is moving around us, and I feel like we are stuck in the same, repeating reel.

Moments come and go, but it feels heavy being surrounded by other fleeting experiences, while we try to navigate this unknown world in the present.

Pangs of guilt and shame surface when I think of the past… losing time with our daughter, wasted away on worry.

But brushing away the future feels burdensome. The anxious feeling awaits us- what will her life look like? What will ours?

I want time to slow down and speed up at the same time, which is again, funny, because it is impossible.