One thing my mother always explained to me as a child was, “the older you get, the faster time flies.”

As a restless and curious ten-year old, I had absolutely no concept of time and just how precious it really is.  I shuffled through days like molasses, and often times would sit on my knees and pray to some unidentifiable man in the sky to hurry up the day, because I was just done with it.  This was often the case during summer vacation, when my mom graciously kicked us out of the house for three months so she could work in peace.  My brother and I would spend the day riding our secondhand bicycles all over the neighborhood and often times to places we were not allowed to explore.  If we weren’t scraping our knees from tumbling over gravel when our attempts at “hey look, no hands!” failed, we crashed our bikes on sidewalks and jumped in our pool in the backyard.  Every year my parents would buy a cheap plastic pool from Wal-Mart, but it did the job every summer.  We’d anxiously peel the hose away from the small puddle of water accumulated at the bottom of the pool like clockwork, because we were sure it just wasn’t filling up fast enough.  Really, at times it felt like minutes lasted hours.  By mid-June, I would be itching for school to start so I could enjoy cooler days and structured weeks.  A few weeks of school, and I’d be wishing for Christmastime, peppermint sticks, and an abundance of snow.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this recently, because retrospectively, it has been a concurrent theme in my life.  I truly feel like I am always waiting for something.  As a kid, it was always for school to start or end.  As a teenager, it was always for the weekend to begin or my work shift to end.  As an adult, it has been a bit more complicated, because it feels like time just escapes me.  I don’t wait for anything to end; instead I am begging for time to slow down so I can enjoy it before it’s gone.

And that is why I say, it’s April already?  I remember when the new year began and my optimism surged, because I had all these grand plans to complete so I could call it a proactive 365 days.  But – just like anyone else in this world – life got in the way.  School, work, family, friends, and other responsibilities of a 22 year-old woman called and asked me to invest love, time, and patience into them as I’ve always done.  I joyfully accepted as these are my top priorities.  However, I promised myself this year that I would invest more time  into myself.  I don’t need manicures or entire afternoons devoting to bargain shopping, but I do need some quiet Sarah time that allows me to open up and dump the contents of my mind.  I need to dedicate more of my time to writing, because that is where my heart has always been.

And that is why I say, shoot!  It’s April already?  And I have not invested any time into myself?  As graduation looms in the near distance, I know that these next six weeks will feel really only feel like three.  Thankfully, I have no obligations to the school as of now, so I am just waiting for the day of celebration to come.  In the meantime, I am trying to remain calm, optimistic, and excited about what the future has in store, even if it will arrive unexpectedly.  I just hope that I am able to make it a routine every day, even if it’s a mere five minutes, to write.

There’s many more thoughts brewing, but I’ll save that for another entry.