This past week, my baby turned 19 years old. To make it all about me, this is the last year of my life in which I will have a teenager. Of course we celebrated, as best we could in the fourth wave of a pandemic. We went out for dinner, bought them things they wanted, had cake and drinks and all the things, they spent time with friends, it was lovely and we are grateful.
A very special part of the celebration was that our synagogue is now having very cautious, abbreviated, masked-and-distanced in-person services, so they were able to have an aliyah. The congregation has known them since well before birth, and a few people flipped out to hear how old my baby is. One person stopped me in the aisle and demanded to know how this was possible, how it happened. All I could do was throw up my hands and say, “Beats me!”
So this isn’t a new story to anyone who has raised kids. As one of my friends said, you feed them, they grow. Somehow I have got used to the idea of my two oldest ones being in their twenties, but there is something about your youngest, your baby, stepping further and further into adulthood, that can really give you pause.
Probably the best advice I got as a young mom, two decades ago, was that the days are long, but the years are short. Time is this crazy nonlinear thing, slow and fast at the same time. As the psychologist Gay Hendricks points out, a minute with your hand on a hot stove is much, much longer than a minute spent with your beloved. How do our minds do this?
You probably won’t be surprised to read that it has to do with our mindset, and with our attitude towards life. When we are paying attention, we have all the time we need, and we can experience the moment we are in. Time slows down.
Most of the time, however (pun intended!), we are too busy with other things, or looking to escape from our lives into fantasy places, and time just slips through our fingers. We look up and wonder where it’s gone. We look at the young adult who was a little child just a moment ago, and it doesn’t seem possible. If we’ve made memories with them, we will still have those when they have moved on with their exciting lives. If we haven’t, it’s not too late, we can make those memories right now, pandemic or not. We just need to make the connection.
So consider this your reminder that the days are long, but the years are short. Pay attention to the people and things that matter to you. You can slow down time by being present and making connections. It’s the only way we can do it.
P.S. This week is Black Friday, and of course we are having a sale. Drop me a message if you want to know about it!