Clocks with wings

I hope your day is a giant bouquet of daffodils left anonymously on your doorstep.

I’ve been an empty nester three times now; none have lasted more than a few months.

This is something I can, and do, alternately celebrate and bemoan. Honestly, I love living with my kids. They’re very entertaining, and we can talk for hours about which storyline in Avatar: The Last Airbender is the most tragic, what year Cat Stevens converted to Islam, how we’d cast the Fleetwood Mac biopic - you know, the important stuff​

And then every once in a while I wish I were here by myself. Not because I’m tired of them, but because it’s hard to be so close to their pain, when it arises. Nothing drives a dagger into my heart more than a child who is suffering. Even if I’m pretty convinced that their suffering is avoidable, IF THEY WOULD ONLY DO THAT THING.

(I’m usually but not always good at refraining from saying that out loud, in part because they could throw it right back at me.)

Admittedly my 26-year-old and I may be sliding into a bit of a Grey Gardens scenario, from which, honestly, someone might have to save us, but overall I’m happy to have my nest intruded upon. Because aside from possibly reinforcing one another’s reclusive habits, living with my adult children is sweet. We give one another plenty of space, we have few expectations and fewer obligations. In fact it’s hard to imagine ever living with anyone else.

Here’s an interesting thing about two people cohabiting, one of whom has recently passed the quarter century mark and one who’s fast approaching 60: we’re both feeling time pressure to get our lives in order.

It’s easy for me to look at someone who’s decades away from crow’s feet and dismiss her concern that she hasn’t figured out what she wants to do with her life. But that anxiety is shockingly similar to what I hear from my contemporaries: we’re aware that we’re closer to the end than the beginning and we don’t want to waste the time we have left.

I’m pretty sure Einstein proved that time in an illusion? Or at least not as straightforward as we like to think? But I managed to get out of both high school AND college without taking physics, so I might be wrong.

I’ve been comforted over the past couple of years by the increasing number of messages telling me that it’s not too late to do… whatever. The lists of creators who didn’t get going until they were well into middle age, the stories of other people’s second and third and fourth acts. 50 is the new 30! We’re living longer, eating better, getting enough exercise. But mostly we’re refusing to be put in boxes and told it’s time to settle down. (Looking at you, The Patriarchy - get out of my head and out of my life!)

What I do know about time is that worrying about it isn’t super helpful. You’re either going to do the thing or not, so maybe we (I?) should stop worrying about whether the time is right and just Van Halen it - i.e. JUMP.

Easier said than done, in part because stasis is so cozy. 🥰

If I’ve learned anything over this past, unusual year, it’s that there is sometimes a moment of clarity, when all the shoulds and oughts and mights coalesce and your true nature arises and asserts itself. And maybe all the hours of processing and considering and weighing helped push me to that point, and were not entirely wasted effort. Whatever the influence of overthinking, it took only an awkward moment for epiphany to shine its spotlight on me.

I saw, I leapt, and nothing has been the same since.

I celebrated a birthday recently, and while there have now been enough of those that they have lost their noteworthiness, it’s still a good time to take stock. The year ahead should involve more leaping, and I’m here for it. The clock is ticking! You can let it lull you to sleep, or you can see it as a time bomb. Either option is fine.

Let’s just try not to have any regrets.

Recommendation!

I love science fiction, in part because I love having my brain stretched. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (affiliate link) does this in spades. The premise is startling and and beautiful, as is the writing.

But the thing I love best about this book is the way it bends time; I've thought about it over and over since reading it. Time shapes us all, and yet these characters step in and out of it in ways that boggle the mind and tease the imagination.

 
 

So much of science fiction presupposes that we've soiled the nest to the point of escape. This one starts there, but imagines such a vast future for the species (and several others) that it piles hope and wonder on disaster, which is honestly pretty comforting at this moment in time.

Bonus - it's the beginning of a trilogy! I'll give it eight thumbs up and leave it to you to determine why. :)

Thanks to Steve Miller Band.

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