You Can't Beat Time

The smell of new pencils and blank paper is in the air. The excitement of kids and parents alike is thick and hangs amongst the sales racks of nonmarking shoes and first day of school clothes. Backpacks that are much too big for little bodies are stuffed full to the brim with kleenex, glue sticks, and Crayola markers. Busses are shiny and clean. Teachers are lovingly arranging their classrooms so they are inviting and organized, hopeful for the learning that will occur shortly.

September. Back to school. My biggest starts Grade 1 this year. I'm not really sure how that's possible, but here we are all the same. It seems like yesterday he was a wee babe. Nursing all hours of the night. Laughing and giggling as he watched the fan above him. I swear just this morning he was taking his first steps down our hallway in the condo. And now he's six. I'm sure by the time I blink again he will be heading into Grade 12 and I will wonder what happened to the last 12 years.

Time. She is a constant thing. Always ticking along at the same pace no matter how much we wish we could pause or fast forward. And yet, though each day has the same number of hours and minutes, some days are longer and some are shorter. Some days are in slow motion. Minutes take hours. Hours take entire days. Some days speed by and before you can even blink the sun has gone down on yet another day. Some days this is welcomed. Some days it is not. There's no beating time. You can't run from her. You can't pause or rewind or fast forward. There's only now. So I will live the moments as they come. Enjoying the happy and day to day moments of life. Knowing that the hard moments will pass, just like time itself. Because in the end, there is only now. And now is full of pencils and paper and the promise of hope in the smiling face of my oldest child.