josamarie
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April 26th, 2013 | Josie
“Sometimes I feel that life is passing me by, not slowly either, but with ropes of steam and spark-spattered wheels and a hoarse roar of power or terror. It’s passing, yet I’m the one who’s doing all the moving.” ~Martin Amis
I remember how slowly the clock used to tick, the minutes moving at a snails pace. From the time I was small, I was always looking to the next thing, the greater adventure just waiting for me to hurry up and embark, and I would impatiently watch the time trickle by in anticipation. Time was infinitely slow, an endless commodity, and there was always plenty of it to go around. Even at times that things seemed to speed up, times when I wanted to world to slow down to give me a few more precious seconds in a particular moment, I never felt like I was losing myself in its passing. I felt as if I had to find ways to fill the time with as much potential as I could cram in, until my life was bursting at the seams. Give me six months and I could visit four countries, make a fool of myself countless times, make ten new friends, and fall in love at least twice. I could fit more life into two years than some might expect to experience in fifty, and I definitely felt the emotional strain for compressing a lifetime into a moment. But I kept on going, because there was so much more to do and see and be.
My life has calmed down considerably in the past few years. I no longer feel the urge to burn the candle at both ends, to stuff experiences into my repertoire like a child hoarding candy. Now that I’m content to let life run its course, to stop forcing the issues at hand and just try to enjoy what time has in store, now that I’m comfortable with its plodding passage, time seems to pass by faster than I can blink, and before I can think to enjoy a moment, it’s gone. I turn my head and a month has passed, or five, and I can’t remember what I did with that time or how it flew by so fast. I feel as if all the big things in life are coming at me all at once. A new home, an exciting step. A miracle made and lost. Sisters grown and growing every day. A new endeavor, with increasing responsibilities and opportunities. Another birthday come and gone. These things all whiz by with a whir and a flash, and I’m left confused as I try to keep up with a life that won’t slow down to meet me at my own pace. The girl who once begged the clock to tick faster, for more to fill the days and weeks, she is now scrambling for purchase in a life that is overflowing with possibilities and coming at the speed of light.
The life in your years…
March 20th, 2012 | Josie
“We turn not older with years, but newer every day.”~Emily Dickinson
My dad told me a story when I was young: when his own mother turned twenty-five, he bought her an old glass rose and gave it to her as a birthday present, because it was an antique, just like her. Twenty-five sounded indescribably old when I was ten, so of course I saw the logic in his childish thinking. I distinctly remember at that age being unable to really envision myself beyond the year 2000, which at the time was only three years away. Later, at the oh-so-mature age of sixteen, I had trouble grasping life beyond high school outside of the fantastical idea that was “college,” impossibly distant for an angsty teen. Even when I reached that echelon of adulthood that is college graduation, I really couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of what came next. Sure I had plans, goals, dreams… but they were fuzzy hopes of what I thought the world could be, what I might be if I could just see the outlines a little more clearly.
Now that the monumental day has come and gone, I have to admit that twenty-five is distinctly anti-climactic. Aside from a few grey hairs (that I think I’m still to young to actually have, despite my husband’s insistence that they exist or the proof I see in my own mirror), I don’t feel any different than I did a year ago, or even five. Now that I have reached the age that my father once called antique, I realize how young I truly am… I look at my sisters, 18 and 20, and think how young they are, even though I know they feel so mature. They have so much more living, so much more learning to do, and I do, too. I’ve learned so much in the past quarter of a century… I’ve loved and I’ve lost, I’ve been hurt and I’ve hurt others beyond imagining. I started the career of my dreams, only to find I loathed the work. I took a job I thought had no future, and have found my future in it after all. I’ve done all the right things and been in all the wrong places, just to find that everything I never knew I wanted was waiting for me where I least expected it. I married a wonderful man, and faced the trials of terrible and unexpected illness with him. I’ve defended my decision to marry young, and struggled with the desire for a family versus the comfort of financial stability. Charlie and I have fought and made up, been silly and cried (sometimes in the same breath), and oft times I still find myself amazed to wake up next to him every morning. I feel as if I have grown into a woman so full of love and life I might burst, an amazing feat for a girl who once thought her heart broken beyond all repair.
Through it all, I’ve never lost those things that make me most essentially me: I still don’t believe in regretting my mistakes, and I still don’t sleep if I can help it. I throw myself into each new project fully, and cannot always find it in myself to finish everything I start. I try to find the good in people, though sometimes I struggle to be positive. I am my own worst critic, and often the worst enemy I have is myself. I approach love with caution, but don’t hesitate to show affection to those I do hold dear. Above all, I’ve learned to embrace my scars, to see beauty in my own imperfections, and to enjoy life for all of its infinite possibilities.