Just yesterday I was researching a topic for an article I am writing. I thought I had all the information I needed but I wanted to find something that I could reference that was not “scholarly” research. I turned to Google and typed in my query, then skipped the titles of the resulting pages and gave the descriptions a quick scan. I found a couple I thought would work. I clicked on one and then the other, and as the page painted on the screen, I realized I was looking at one of my own blog posts!

You would think I would remember a blog I wrote. In my defense it was from nearly three years ago, early in the kidney transplant series. Three years ago seems like a long time now. When we’re very young, preschool age, three years didn’t mean anything which makes sense because when you are only 4 or 5 years old, 3 years is most of our life. You don’t even think about time. There isn’t a reference to how long something is or lasts. You wake up, you eat, you play, you nap, you play again, you eat some more, you play one more time, you sleep.  The only thing that varies from day to day is what Garanimal you are wearing.

As we get older, three years starts to have some meaning although it’s still fairly abstract. To an 8 year old, the 11 year old version is bigger, has a bigger bike, maybe has more homework, but the 8 year old isn’t particularly chomping at the bit to close that three year gap. Now the 13 year old starts putting some meaning into a three year stretch. At thirteen things are starting to happen, not necessarily overt but now there are times when you look back three years and say how easy it was then, back in the safety of elementary school  when nobody really cared what color your bike was, while simultaneously looking ahead three years when you get to trade that bike in for a license and a car! But that also puts you into high school and all you can tell from your 13 year old perspective is those older kids are always angry about something.

By the time you get through those high school years, 3 years is an eternity.  The 18 year old version of you can’t even remember being a gawky 15 year old at a first dance absolutely refusing to make eye contact with those people on the other side of the gym. Looking ahead, three years wouldn’t even get you through college if that was your path, and whether you’re university bound or directly entering work life, your reign as BMOC (I suppose today, BNGSOC) has come to an end and your new status is back to low man on the totem pole. (And if you can rework that phrase politically correctly, congratulations!)

Rise you did though, the years went by, and in your mid to late 20’s three years is much like the adult version of the elementary school years. You see ahead a bigger version of you – a bigger job with a bigger car, bigger house, bigger family. They come with more home work (now two words). The difference now is that you are chomping at the bit to close that gap and get to “biggers” as quickly as you can.

Young adulthood goes by in a blink. The real adult phase you don’t even remember. Then suddenly, you turn middle age. Three years is a drop in the bucket. Plans you made that you were “definitely going to do next year” don’t get done for three, a three year old car is now new to you, three years is the life expectancy of the paint on the walls, the feeling that every day is the same stretches to every year is the same, and the only thing that varies from year to year is what size waist band you are wearing.

And then there is now. Three years, only three years, yet I couldn’t recognize my own words. What other things happened three years ago that now belong to somebody else’s memories. The last time I went into work, the last time I planned a vacation, the last time I danced with somebody. The last time I shared picnic blanket and bottle of wine under a sunny summer sky.

I suppose it is only a matter of a few more year, perhaps three, that the years won’t mean anything which makes sense because when you are of a certain age you don’t even think about time. There isn’t a reference to how much longer something might last. You wake up, you eat, you play, you nap, you play again, you eat some more, you sleep.  The only thing that varies from day to day is the expression you are wearing and the feeling in your heart.

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Continuing with my experiment on the WordPress/Anchor partnership, Don’t Believe Everything You Think is available on these platforms.

  

Please let me know what you think. So far I’m still mostly just recording the blog posts but eventually there will be more than that. We might even get into a discussion about how we all got into blogging.

This post will begin to be available on these platforms later today.