Lesson One: Time

Lesson One: Time

The moment I stepped off of the plane, I realized that time exists without any consideration to the humans that inhabit and exploit it’s unit of measure. Everything was different; the ambient light was orange and low, the highways were stopped because of the snow and ice, my house was colder than I remembered it. I tried my best to stay awake next to my dad as he drove towards our home in King of Prussia; looking through the icy precipitation into the tree line, searching shadows for familiar shapes and places.

The moment I stepped off of the plane, I realized that time doesn’t exist. Everything was the same, familiar, comfortable, small. I greeted my dog, Max and ran to my parents room. My mother was asleep – no shock there. I sat down next to here and everything was the same. My dad sat down as my mother flicked a light on. She looked the same.

I have spent the past 7 months constructing a new life for myself – separate, apart, away from everything I grew up with. I didn’t realize that time was passing in other parts of the world. I have this thing whenever I leave a place that I know I won’t return for a while and/or at all; I walk around the space and take a mental picture of my surroundings. Life ceases to move forward at that time. Every conversation, every email, text, phone call exists mentally inside of this mental picture.

All of this is to say that my pursuit of perspective revealed the power of time. It never stops. It’s the one force in existence that cannot be bent or obstructed by the human hand alone. We are powerless to stop it. We live a life of benchmarks until we graduate college – our lives seem endless, moving from one step to the other. Suddenly, I’m a rock in this river of time; apart from other rocks, affected individually by the rushing laps of water, but part of the rock bed. There comes a point when the water strengthens, the river floods and you’re lifted from the bed. Suddenly, under the pressure of the waves, you’ve discovered you’re a different shape, texture, weight – a completely different rock.

I’ve been lifted: removed, resurfaced, replanted. The really unbelievable thing is that this process immediately begins again after you land. Now, I’m surrounded by new waves and tides. This will always be the same, I will always be different.