Pre-edited photo by Jon Phillips
In my youth, in a hospital bed, I became one with the ticking progression of the universe.
I was flesh to flesh with Time, tangled in her limbs. I was centimeters away from her soft but final edges. Near death. Effectively dead. Balanced precariously.
Every part of me slept as Time seeped past my skin and ran through my veins. I became her. I was asleep; on pause, effectively ageless.
In our coalescence, I understood her.
Time is so often lost in our grasping; misunderstood in the face of our desire for ownership of our world. The human mind loves to pretend we can capture, take, make, spend, and measure everything.
In truth, Time lives in every single piece of every one of us. She takes us. She makes us. She spends us, and she measures us.
Stretched across the center of my small hospital bed, 25 years ago, she comforted me. My eyes would not open. My heart did not respond. My brain forgot who it was, but Time held tight to my memories of myself.
She pet my hair, and told me I had more to do. I had been measured and I was unfinished. I told her I wanted to wake up, or sleep forever, and she told me that first I needed to dream.
She stopped for me, and gave me the most wondrous sleep.
I was on pause, but the world continued on.
A day. Two days.
A week. Two weeks.
When my eyes finally found their way to openness, my brain still didn’t remember some things. It had lost words, and ideas, shapes, and colors. My heart saw my family, though it was many days till I knew their names, and nearly a year till I remembered what flavors and sounds they preferred.
They asked me how old I was, over and over, but I could only respond with a giggle.
Age is a human hope, based in the idea that we can measure Time herself.
We can’t.
She measures us, and I’m one of the lucky few who has absorbed her whispers, felt her breath. She will tell me when I reach the end again, but until then, I will continue to tick tock away with the turnings of the season.
If you want to know how old I am, simply ask her.
Time will tell the truth she whispered to me so many years ago:
I am unfinished.
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The Daily Post wants to hear your thoughts on age, too. http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/weekly-writing-challenge-golden-years/
This is just pieces of a larger story, but it’s a start. The first real start I’ve taken in telling this tale. Maybe one day I’ll tell you what I dreamed.
Were you a sickly kid, like me? Or a robust one?
