Reflections on time and change

Most people strangely sigh, with an at-awe look when they have realized how old they have become, saying that time has passed very quickly. As a child, I often found it strange especially that I found time to pass ever so slowly according to my childish perception. Yet, some part of believed it; maybe due to their truthful looks, their lamenting voices or their grieving eyes...I don't know, but I did believe it. At the back of my mind, the statement lingered and I became aware of time; how quickly it moves when I am playing, how slowly it drifts when I am at school, and how sweetly is passes while I am sleeping.

The notion of time was enhanced when my mother gave me my first watch at the fresh age of 10. I became obsessed with time; every couple of minutes I would quickly check the device wrapped around my wrist to see where I stood from time. I slept wearing it, swam with it (it was after-all a water-proof high-tech Casio watch, fit for diving) and did everything humanly possible with the small ticking invention reminding me that time is passing.

This continued for a couple of years. Then I became obsessed with alarm clocks, waking early, making the best of my day, and cramming as much as possible in the wee hours of the morning, which I found to be most productive.

Birthdays were especially fun for me, as it marked the passing of not only time, but also my life. I have always loved it, never shied away from it and I have always celebrated it in my own little ways.

All those factors compiled into someone very much aware of time. That's why I have never felt that my life went by fast, or wasn't fast enough. To, time passed normally and I don't feel robbed. Of course, I have wasted time as people often do, but I have always been aware of that while I am wasting it.

That's why now, in the midst of great change of a country I have lived in, great change of people I have known and great change of things I have become used to, I don't feel like my life went by too fast, but rather that I am stuck in time, aware of it passing, but unable to move with it.

I don't feel that different, but I know that I am growing up or rather maturing, as I let go of old grudges, accept the changes in others and even though I might not share their thoughts, I wish them well in all their lives, hoping that they reach whatever goals they set and become surrounded with unmatched happiness.