As I read this poem Glenn, I realized in actual earth years I am old. But my mind and inner emotions feel like I’m in my 40s. Of course some part of me feels like I’m maybe 2 or 6 - depending on the day or hour. Then I think of my father who died at 32. He never got to get earth years old. Then there were other family members who got old in body and mind needing to have everything done a certain way at a certain time like fixing breakfast and cleaning the kitchen BEFORE we got to open our
Christmas presents. My 6 year self never understood that . I could go on and on pondering but I won’t. Thanks for sharing this poem and I hope you get old.
Thanks for your thoughts Jean…I appreciate them…and you…and I can completely relate to your experience.
Time, for me, is like an element…and as you say it changes state from day to day and moment to moment…sometimes it’s a liquid and it behaves in a flowing, syrupy manner and sometimes it’s a gas and it dissipates on the slightest breeze…and sometimes it’s a solid and seems immovable and far too stable (standing in a line at the bank for example…or sitting in the dentist’s chair…).
A lot of the time I have a very hard time dealing with time…it pushes and pulls my emotions. How can I be ‘here now’ and at the same time be fully immersed in ‘the past’? How can ‘the past’ be gone and yet it’s ‘here now’? I have those sorts of experiences that can leave me feeling disoriented in space and time. It can be more than a bit unsettling for me.
Yes, yes and yes! I am practicing being here now a lot, especially when I want to feel calmer and let go of feeling worried. It doesn’t always work either. But I will keep practicing. In the dentist chair it feels like time slows down to almost stopping. Waiting! One of the hardest energies I experience even to the part when I actually get up and leave.
To make it even more confusing I’ve hear/read that we are in many places at the same time. Past, present, future lives. That disorientates me to the point I just don’t think about it.
…growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty.
This is a line from a poem that I just posted, Instructions on Not Giving Up that really resonated with me and in some way think it fits into this conversation.
You’re born with a ton of fucks to give, so you spend them like a kid with a credit card. You give fucks about your friends, about your grades, about your fashion sense, about strangers’ opinions. You give way too many fucks about way too many things. You have so many.
Then, as you get older, you have maybe 10 fucks per month, so you learn to budget them. You allocate fucks to family and career, but there aren’t enough fucks to give to the newest fads. Oh, someone at work has something they need my help with that’s outside my job title? I’ll do my best to allocate some fucks, but this month is pretty tight.
Then, as you get even older, you’re down to 1-2 fucks per month, and those fucks are pretty damn precious. You give them to your family and your hobbies and your job, and that’s kinda it. It’s not your fault – fucks expire too quickly. I would’ve liked to have saved my fucks from when I was younger, but it’s not an option - there are no fuck vaults for normal folks.
Then, you hit fuck insolvency. You’re getting like 1 fuck a year, and you have to make it last. So you go without, and even previously fuck-worthy things, you just can’t give a fuck. Some people run out really quickly, Some wealthy folks have a fuck trust fund that pays out a decent amount even into old age.
At some point, the fuck faucet runs completely dry and you’re out of fucks to give. It’s just basic Fuckonomics.
Maybe one of the joys of getting old! No more fucks to give!