I’ve felt time a little heavier lately—in the fine lines I can’t remember from before; in the tiny popping in my lower back as I twist down to pick up a pen; in that fiercely subtle “boom, boom, boom” in my chest, like a ticking clock, like a threat, wrapped up in blessings, and moments, punctuated by pauses.

Time moves through the bird on the other side of the office window. Is it a mockingbird? For a moment, it looks at me—then leaps in a dash, out of view and into the past.

Time is everywhere and nowhere. It’s an entity, watching me, partnering with gravity to carry tears down my cheeks. So I breathe through it, letting them fall. Letting them crash into my thigh, building in small, wet circles as they soak into the fabric.

I feel the pull of it from my child’s closet. One by one, I dress the hangers and hook them to their stalwart pole, the variety sends a flood of mixed-emotions to my center. In here, I’m caught off-guard by time. It lurks between the lines of the different-sized hangers, dangling unfettered, un-donated, un-noticed until now—until laundry day. Time moves faster in Aidan’s closet.

Then it slows, puppeteering the tree outside my window, causing it to lift and sag in unison with a tune I’m hearing now for the very first time. A gentle flutter, a soft jerk, it sways and waves to me from behind dirt-speckled glass. There never seems to be enough time to clean the windows…

Time is a toddler, tugging at my dress as I over pour the laundry detergent until its absence surprises me.

Time comes over me in the discomfort I still feel, after all this time, herded through indoor spaces, taunted by the un-masked faces of humans on a balmy afternoon. I take note of my lingering fear, even though I’m unmasked too. Maybe it’s a Costco or an Ikea…Maybe it’s Maybelline. Does it matter what it is?

Time reminds me that I might never feel “normal” again, threatened by a looming tendency to fall back into survival mode, accompanied by flashes from my past, a childhood largely unaffected by the mistakes of senior generations (or so we were told).

Time appears in a rust-splattered park bench, and in that overflowing trashcan that stains my Schlitterbahn memory from years ago…when everything felt a bit freer. If I focus really hard, I can evoke that feeling from before…as if for a moment, I control time. Wouldn’t that be a trip?

Time is in the rise and fall of an elderly pup’s chest, circumnavigating a pounding, failing heart as she lies frustrated in her corner of the office floor. Will she get to go for a walk today? Only time will tell…

Time passes by osmosis through everything—through our very existence. And yet, it doesn’t exist. It isn’t graspable. We can’t even begin to comprehend what it’s trying to be. But we do try to capture it, don’t we? That elusive White Whale that is, whatever time is…

Despite time’s ever-presence, let me act as a child might. Upon becoming lost in some creepily luscious forest, let me stand fast, unwavering in the moment—straying not toward the taunting pull of grief for the passage of time. Let me notice when it’s in the room, pause, and let it breathe right through me.