It's a stormy night, mid November here in Brisbane and I'm tripping that Christmas is only weeks away. I've been in denial about it coming around so quickly this year (prematurely as I see it) and have found myself actually developing an attitude toward the shop assistant setting up the Christmas tree in the department stores.
I remember as a kid listening to adults complain about the years flying past in the blink of an eye and being boggled at the thought. All I could see was the clock in my classroom taking forever to get to 3pm. And that was 3pm!? Thats so early in the day for us now and most days 3pm comes and goes long before we even have a chance to look at the time! I'd give anything to have the day go that slow again.
As my teenage years rolled on and I left school, I can still remember the first time I caught myself starting to think like an adult. It was when I'd realised how many years it had been since I had been doing my own laundry, bill paying & grocery shopping. I thought.."Whoa.. I'm actually getting older?" It would have been about three years into my university degree, meaning I'd been three-variety-filled years away from my parent's home that I hadn't even stopped to think that life had actually changed.. dramatically. An era was well and truly over.
After that first realisation the thoughts kept rolling on in. I could't escape them! I thought about how the reality was that I would never ever be able to live those childhood years again. Never be able to go back to being looked after by my parents and will never be able to re-live the stress free days of only worrying about how to wear my hair and completing the five hundred word assignments. Even looking back at my uni years I realised that they were days of bliss. I now had to find work, save for a home, get married, have children, and ..grow old.
I can tell now, five years on from that first shuddering realisation, that we humans are never fully released from our pasts. I reckon we will always grieve for the times we've had, the friendship circles we were in, the experiences we created and the way we looked and felt in our 'prime'. Every photo seems to leave a stabbing feeling in the chest upon viewing -knowing we can never go back. Every familiar song and smell is so ruthless to bring up a lifetime of emotions and memories, and in an instant, leave you short for air thinking "How did I get here? Where is everyone now I wonder?"
It seems when you are young, life's all about enduring the current season and longing for the next. When you are older, you will still endure the current season yet wish the good ol' days could be relived. We all know that time changes a lot of things and once it is gone there is never any going back. Time holds every person captive and I actually think that more you try and hold on to time the faster it goes.
My aim as a young 25year old, is to try and not always long for a change in my current circumstance, but to realise that very soon a lot will change and I will be wishing this part of my life never actually passed. Or just for a little while I could just go back. You really do never appreciate many things until they are gone. And gone for good.
I have a loving family around me, great friends, great employment opportunities and enough space in my future not to try and hurry it all along. Even still, I don't want to be stressed about how life roles on either. There are elements of the future that scare me that I will eventually have to face. But for now I want to put my feet up on a sunny afternoon, hot tea in hand, and take time to watch the trees and think happily about the time i've been given thus far and feel peaceful about many moments to come.
My tip- Surround yourself with music, scenery, books and people that force you to stop and see the world around you in that moment in all it's beautiful fullness.
So bring on Christmas I say!
sarah
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