4 am is not my friend.
It is the hour when I sing my anthem for self-flagellation.
It is the time, if I happen to wake, that I tell myself I am a loser. I am doing nothing with my life. I am not living up to my potential. I am wasting my time and talent. I am not taking care of the gifts I was given. I am going to be 90 in a minute and then I’m going to die. Not really but still.
Time is evaporating and I do not like it. Years turn to mist as I approach another birthday. This 4 am behavior always ramps up prior to and just after this annual anxiety-producing event. It is like someone turned over a heavy hourglass and I cannot escape the weight of its sand.
And it’s not just me and my time that I’m afraid of losing; it’s the people I love and their time too. I have been listening and crying to, on repeat, Bonnie Raitt’s “Nick of Time:”
I see my folks are getting on
And I watch their bodies change
I know they see the same in me
And it makes us both feel strangeNo matter how you tell yourself
It’s what we all go through
Those lines are pretty hard to take
When they’re staring back at youScared to run out of time.
Oh, Bonnie Raitt, why do you have to be so wise?
I don’t know how to measure success. And I certainly don’t know what defines it either. I have had professional successes in different fields and yet I still feel totally unfulfilled.
Or, perhaps, success is being content with your personal life and that I am. I love my husband. I love my kids. I love my parents. I love my friends. If you can pick your successes, I would rather it be in the area in which I’m already thriving. After all, you cannot spoon with your career and if you can, please send pictures.
And yet that hourglass continues to be so cumbersome. It occupies so much of my mind and self-worth.
When did the choices get so hard
With so much more at stake
Life gets mighty precious
When there’s less of it to waste
Wasting time is a horrible regret to live with. I need to make promises to myself that I won’t break.
upwitscreek 
I know, right? Life seems on permanent fast forward at this point. NOTHING slows it down. Well, except a dental appointment – those still take forever…
Ha! Yes, yes.
It is ironic that time speeds up the older you get. As a child I used to complain about how slow time always was as I could not wait for certain things to happen.
I know. It’s nuts.
Reblogged this on jennaash317.
Reblogged this on cherihashorses.