Timeless

My darling wife, Jules, often suggests to me that I live in the past. I think she might be on to something. I do spend a lot of time in times other than the present here and the present now. Over the years I’ve come to feel like my sense of time is different to most people’s, and the apparent divisions between the past, present and imagined future are very blurry indeed. I wrote an earlier piece on the ‘present’ so I won’t revisit that. But I often wonder why one period of time is deemed more important than another simply because of where it occurs in relation to our current timeline, rather than it’s intrinsic value.

If one of the most important things we can do with our time is to experience and learn from those experiences, then does when the experience happened matter? We humans are great at thinking we know something, and we’re often right, but ‘knowing’ isn’t all there is to ‘learning’. Otherwise I’d only have to read the instructions for putting that flat pack cupboard together and Bob’s your uncle it’s up. Let me posit to you that many of life’s lessons are in fact like Ikea instructions – don’t expect to get it all down on one read through. Or two, or even three…

Life will tend to throw up repeat opportunities to learn the same lesson, hence that wonderful observation: Experience is a great teacher; it teaches you to recognise the same mistake when you make it again. Unfortunately that’s too many words to have tattooed on my arm. But while we’re waiting for life to toss us back into whatever deep end we didn’t quite learn to swim in last time, we can to some degree rewind, pause, play and glean more from the first time well after the event. In remembering some past experience we have an opportunity to relearn, consolidate what we learned at the time. It’s also likely that on some occasions in remembering we can see things from a different angle and learn something new.

Often what I get from remembering is an opportunity to re-experience the emotions I felt, and also to filter those experiences through what I’ve learned and experienced since. The other day on a trip to our local Bunnings (hardware store) I was waiting in the car for Jules to do her hardware fix thing. Long story short, COVID restrictions. Being soon bored I rifled through my wallet, as I do about twice a year, to rid it of all those dockets and reminders on paper scraps that I tend to shove in and forget. Good thing too, as I ended up with a palm full of crumpled bits of paper well past their use by dates. In the process I pulled out a very tattered piece of paper, about credit card size, that had a photo of Jules on it, one that was taken some twenty odd years ago. The first thought I had was ‘Gee, she was a good looking girl’, then it struck me that while, yes, age does leave its mark on all of us and the glow of youth fades, she was still the same woman I fell desperately in love with all those years ago. And with that thought I knew, again, that all the stupid, dumb little things that irk me, get on my goat, even anger me at times, about our day to day interactions, were really just that; stupid, dumb, and of very little consequence compared to the fact that she puts up with me every day. So yes, I teared up a bit.

I hopped out of the car when Jules returned and helped her put her armful of bits and bobs into the back of the car, then tried to explain the little revelation I’d had while waiting for her. Speaking stuff has never been my forte, so after stumbling around words that really didn’t convey what I wanted them to, I hugged her. Which, in its way, is another of life’s lessons I seem to be taking forever to learn; a hug can say a thousand words, so do that instead.

So, sure, live for today… and yesterday and tomorrow. Just remember that it’s all the same journey we’re on, all the time.

And while you’re at it, go hug someone.