Slowly upstairs...

...faster down.

Jethro Tull lyrics from "We Used to Know".

I remember VERY vividly being in second grade with Mrs. Gibbons. I remember watching the clock and having the thought, "Once it is 1:00pm, the rest of the day will go by quickly." The morning was always SO long. Time appeared to drag on at a snails pace when I was seven. Or the time the neighbor kids were coming over to our house. I asked my mom when they'd be at our house. "In an hour." That was the longest hour ever. Only as a grown up did I discover why kids REPEATEDLY ask, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?AREWETHEREYET?!". They have no concept of time.

So, how does something that seems to drag on at the time go away so fast? The first private 'conversation' I had with Alyssa (at the ripe old age of 1 hour old) was this: "Please, please, please don't grow up as quickly for me as I did for Gert and Gramp." Ahhhh...futility.

At 29, hours are a manic measurement of time. Being told you have an hour to do something implies a certain element of urgency and panic. And, sadly, days, weeks, month and years seem to have a similar urgency to them. Being told you have "one day" to accomplish something just seems unreasonable now. A day is so short. Likewise for the other increments of time. When did it all become so short...and how ridiculous will this statement look in twenty years, when time will presumably be passing even faster?

I've been thinking about time a lot lately.

Today, it has been a year since my grandfather passed. He was the first grandparent I've lost and first member of my immediate family I've lost. In a way, I think my concept of time has been altered because all of the players in my life have stayed the same since my functioning memory began. And I'm grateful and lucky for that. Heck, I still have my great-grandmother. Losing my grandfather wasn't a surprise. He hadn't been well for awhile and hadn't been 'himself' for longer. And any thoughts I had about the aging/death/dying process were permanently altered because of it. I have a horrible tendency of shutting down and blocking out things that overwhelm me. I can have the most discerning blind eye you've ever seen. Alyssa, Jay and I had planned on going to the nursing home on Father's Day last year to visit Papa. It would be the first time I went back by myself in six months, after an unfortunate and upsetting visit that Alyssa and I had gone on by ourselves. We had been talking for two weeks prior about going to see him for Father's Day.

The night that Papa passed, Jay and I had a 'date' night and climbed Dedham Bald Mountain while Alyssa was with Grandpa Wayne and Grammie Artlene, making Father's Day presents. We took pictures, enjoyed our time together and descended the mountain to go home and pick up Alyssa. It was a Thursday. Friday night we were hoping to go to the horse races with my parents. I can't even look at those pictures without getting a pit in my stomach. Papa was slipping away right then... Christopher called me at almost midnight. Now, in a true sign of my complete oblivion to the concept of someone dying...it never occured to me while the phone was ringing that anything bad had happened. I thought they were calling to tell me that he and Nikki were pregnant. Truly. Never once did I consider for a second that someone had passed. When Christopher told me...I argued. Like, not "no! it can't be true!"...but "No. You're wrong. We're going there on Sunday for Father's Day. You're wrong." And honestly believing it. He was wrong. He was mistaken. My parents hadn't called me and Christopher got his news wrong. At one point I threw the phone. It slowly sunk in. And over the next few days, I realized exactly how much one can accomplish while never taking a break to stop crying. The Dane Cook bit where he talks about all the stuff he did while crying - brushed his teeth, checked his emails, drove his car - I did it all. I honestly didn't stop crying for ...well... I don't know how many days.

It has been a year today. I could go on and tell you in great detail about how the following days happened. Emailing my friends that I couldn't go hiking Chick Hill with them on Friday. The frantic searching through the cabinets for food. Christopher's bloody nose. Mom telling me to go hug Nikki because she was very upset and needed me...and feeling totally relieved that someone found me fit to comfort someone else. Explaining to Alyssa that he was gone. Feeling badly that Jay had the strength to hold me during the funeral...and remembering that I was too paralyzed in fear and grief to do the same at his Gram's. A lot of stuff. And it seems so immediate. But it has been a year. A year.

I've been thinking a lot about time lately.

In a week and a half, Alyssa will turn six. Her bottom two teeth are loose. The same teeth that were the first to come in. She informed me that soon, she'll be nine. I don't know where that number came from...but she's right. In just three years. Three super short year. She'll be nine. She is currently a third the way thru childhood. And in three years, she'll be half way. And in the world of this 29 year old, three years is over in an instant...but I know in the mind of my six year old...three years is an eternity. And yet...some day, she'll be (God willing) sitting in a hospital bed, holding a child who is just an hour old and begging that child not to grow as fast as she did for her parents. And I'll be fifty something...begging for the same thing...because evidence has shown, that "Charlie stole the handle and the train it won't stop going, no way to slow down..."

(might as well finish off with another Tull quote. ;))