Nu Resolution
By Joe Walker
I thought when I grew up I’d have a job as a cartoonist. I’m grown now, and I don’t draw cartoons for a living. Sometimes while at work I wonder if I’m living at all. I’m breathing, aware of my surroundings, and I get to interact with other living beings, but I can’t shake feeling as though I’m in slow motion. Time seems to just dance around me.
I stare at my watch (or whatever other timepiece is within eyesight) straining as I concentrate, widening my eyes as though I have some form of ESP or Jedi persuasion. I’m willing time to speed up, to quicken its pace even slightly. My eyes suggest speedy maneuvers, like crumping or break dancing. Time waltzes. The clock reads 2:45PM. What feels like two hours later: the clock reads 2:46PM. Time slowly dances on. Awesome minute.
Yet time loves an audience. You take your eyes away for a second and years fly by. I swear yesterday my oldest son, Tristan, was 4-years-old sitting in his Winnie The Pooh chair playing with a stuffed Scooby Doo. And today…he’s 12! Winded from basketball practice he slumps his pre-teen frame tiredly into our recliner, excited about playing his game at MacDonald Middle School this coming weekend – the very school he’ll be attending come September. Darn you, time! Slow down! Return to steadily circling and prancing, like when I’m watching you dance while longing for my shift to end.
Maybe time does slow a little while you’re watching it waltz. Grab someone you love and join in. Savor those two-hour-long minutes. Albeit slow or fast, before long you’ve run out of time. As I washed dishes yesterday, I occasionally glanced at the clock – once or twice every few seconds. Around 1:01PM I started thinking about Terry Williams, one of my childhood best friends. I remembered all the fun we had as kids, all the memories we shared from grade school through high school, and knowing his accomplishments as an adult. I next remembered my mother delivering me the tragic news of his passing, killed in an auto accident a few years ago. I cried, wiping my eyes before glancing at the clock. It was 1:02. Felt liked I’d cried all day. Awesome minute.
New Resolution: Watch the clock, and enjoy every slow, dancing second as it passes.
