Time is not Renewable

Last month was my 25^th wedding anniversary—the days before selfies and all that jazz (ancient history).  Within eighteen months, we were parents and that’s been going on ever since.  Once you’ve got kids, your identity changes, you become “Erick’s dad” or “Mike’s mom” rather than Mr. and Mrs.  Even at home, you refer to your spouse by their family role most of the time.

Some couples are able or willing to farm-out their kids for extended period or have money to throw around to take extravagant vacations with everyone.  We didn’t have those luxuries—partially because of finances, partially because of other activities—as a coach, I spent summers working with my team or working camps for other people to make extra money.  Julie taught summer-session for the same reason, so it turned out the only time we could get without kids along was if she came along to a volleyball camp with me.  That’s fine, but it isn’t really ‘vacation.’

Time changes things.  I coach college now and Julie’s now a department chair, so she works all summer—but now has the ability to take vacation time whenever she wants.  It meant we had an opening last month to go on our first real vacation together in something like 23 years.  It was a great time.  We didn’t do anything significant, didn’t take pictures of one another—we just spent a ton of time together.

On the way back as we were riding Amtrak back past Denver, I realized something about being married, our trip, and (since I write a lot about it…wait for the shock….) coaching and the relationships we maintain in life.  Maybe some of it is profound, maybe some of it is just turning 50, maybe it has been there all along and I’ve just been too dense to consider it.  All of those are possibilities.

You see, in life, people are constantly rushing around on vacation.  They have to see Site X, get to Place Y.  They need souvenirs for themselves, for people back home.  The item substitutes for the experience—and that’s reasonable because things fade from memory.  Time does tricky things to our mind.  The thing is—those items are ‘permanent.’  We have them, they remain until thrown out.  If we break one, we can always go back and get another.  Items are always replaceable.  When you get down to it, everything on this planet, everything we own—it is all replaceable.  Except for one thing.

Time.

Time should be precious to everyone—once it is gone, it can never be reclaimed.  It is a luxurious feeling to take that one-hour nap (I love naps), but you don’t get that hour back later on.  Ever.  Sitting here in front of a keyboard—gone forever for the sake of communicating to whoever reads this.  

There is no greater gift on this planet, in existence as we know it, than to give someone time.  To talk with them, to break bread with them, to put an arm around them, to teach, to listen, to coach.  You give the person that time and it was theirs forever.  The catch?  It’s mutual—in return for time you will never get back, they are sharing their precious seconds-minutes-hours with you as well.  Appreciate that sharing.

I don’t always, but I’m getting better, trying to at least.

And while writing on time, consider listening to this, what became one of the two or three greatest Twilight Zone episodes of all time: Time Enough at Last

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