Time
Every once in a while, I find myself in an anxious stupor (if that’s even possible) as I feel time ticking away from me tick by tick by tick by tick…Whoops! There goes another second.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the odd one out in a room of millions. Like being the only girl in a room full of men. Like being the short person in a standing crowd. Like being the only black person in a classroom – Oh wait! I already face that every day!
But really, sometimes I wonder if anyone else in the world looks at the fact that every second that passes is a second closer to death. I think about it…often. Far too often. Sometimes, I think about it to the point that my breath catches and I run a dozen prayers through my mind to calm my spirit to the point that I can face the world again. And, there goes another ten minutes.
The entire idea of life bothers me. Twenty-three years have come and gone for me. One day I’ll wake up and I’ll be thirty or forty or sixty or ninety or I’ll just wake up to some searing pain in my chest as my body goes into cardiac arrest and I run a dozen prayers through my mind hoping that all “bad stuff” I’ve done or said or thought can be washed away in the .0310 seconds before I take my last breath.
The Christian in me does not fear death. I know – no, I really know – that I have accepted Christ in my heart and if I were to die at this very second…there’s a pretty good chance I would go to heaven. That part doesn’t bother me, in fact, it’s the only thing that comforts me. But then come the “what-ifs.”
The what-ifs drive doldrums into depressions, they drive eccentricities into insanities, they…I don’t know if I can sit here and list all the ways the what-ifs make the world a miserable place, but every time I think about another second passing…the what-ifs plague me.
What if this is all there is? What if there is no after-life waiting me? What if when we’re gone, we’re gone? What if I’ll never see Edrith or MawMaw again? What if my own mother dies and that’s it. No more hugs or lengthy birth stories every 26th of September; no more nothing. What if I never get married and have children? What if I end up old and alone? What if death is painful? What if it starts happening to me and I’m conscious of every part of it? What if I’m in such a panic when it starts to happen, I don’t even think of prayer and my last thoughts are “Oh shit!” instead of “Oh Christ!”? What if I think back to writing this post in my last moments and think, “What an utter waste of time!”? What if…indeed.
All the what-ifs notwithstanding, time keeps on marching. Already twenty minutes have passed since the moment I wrote “Time” as the title of this. Twenty minutes gone in a life that has to end at some point. Twenty fewer minutes to wonder, to love, to think, to grow, to create, to cry, to smile, yearn, eat, sleep, breath. And, there goes another twenty.
I think this is just a reflection on procrastination. I haven’t had time all week to even practice the lesson to be able to teach the adult class on Sunday, but what has me on edge is the fact that there hasn’t even been time to procrastinate. It’s already April and the book’s not done. It’s already April and the weight isn’t down a bit. It’s already April and I still don’t feel like I’m a greater, stronger, better Christian. And, another ten minutes into April gone.
Time…keeps moving on. Heh.
Time keeps movin’ on,
Friends they turn away.
I keep movin’ on
But I never found out why
I keep pushing so hard the dream,
I keep tryin’ to make it right
Through another lonely day, whoaa.
…maybe that should be my new song for the blog. Hmm…
Category: Deep Thought, Jesus, On Me | Tags: death, end, janis joplin, life, loss, time One comment »
June 13th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Oh my GAWD! I didn’t know we we so much alike. And, before I continue, you better not start critiquing my grammar!! 🙂
Seriously, your “what-ifs” really hit home. What if it is all for nothing? I don’t find myself asking this question as much as I used to, but I do still ask it from time to time. My answer: stop trying to figure it out. I am here to tell you that you will feel much better once you stop trying to analyze it. Just go with the flow and try to do the right thing.