Time is one of those concepts that I don’t understand.  I only know that there never seems to be enough of it.  But that space-time continuum thing and the-seeing-something-from-a-speeding-train-while-someone else-sees-it-from-the-platform thing… You know, that mass and energy E=mc² thing that Einstein figured out?  That completely escapes me.

I do know that time moves much faster for those of us who are older.  Instead of waiting forEVER for Christmas, it now gallops into view at warp speed, ready or not.  Each of our days is shorter, too.  What happened to those long, lazy afternoons of childhood when we had time down at the bay to build castles and dig tunnels and slide on the moss-covered ballast rocks for hours and hours and hours before dinner?  Now, it seems to take all afternoon just to walk down the lane to the bay and back, never mind the building projects.

I was never one to waste time being bored, though.  No one ever told me that “boredom is a choice.” I always knew, instinctively, that time was precious and that once the day was done, you couldn’t get it back.  I remember thinking about that the first time I ever flew to the East Coast, back in 1957.  As I recall, from San Francisco to New York was a five-hour trip in those days, but the trip back home took a shorter amount of time.  So, did that mean I had added or subtracted a bit of time to my life?  And what if I just kept flying in the same direction every time I took a trip?  Could I prolong my allotted time on this mortal coil?

But, as we all know, time is an arbitrary measure, Time zones and the international date line are man-made concepts to help us keep track of ourselves as our planet rockets around the sun.  It was probably easier back when the earth was flat and the sun did the moving.  Although, come to think of it, I don’t think people lived longer in those days.

Bottom line: I have a lot to do these next few days and I’m not sure how to manage all of it.  Time to get on with it.  Or, as we’ve always said in this family, “Times a-wasting!”