Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

by Angela Brown

College is unique in that way. Time is compressed. Friendships are fast-tracked. One minute, you’re strangers; the next, you eat greasy takeout together every night and shower in the same hallway.

“You know, it’s okay to be happy and to still have things about your life that you want to change.” She spread a napkin across her lap. “You still have time to travel the world and leave your job and dye your hair pink if you really want.”

You see, there’s a great secret to motherhood: no matter who you are or who you used to be or who you’d once dreamed you’d become, you were supposed to pretend that your children were enough, that you weren’t multifaceted, and that your dreams weren’t three-dimensional. You weren’t supposed to admit that you had any dreams reserved exclusively for yourself at all.

The conversation was the only thing guiding us. We talked about our past—about highs and lows and old drinking holes and former fashions and friends who came and went so quickly we no longer remembered their names. Don’t get me wrong. Ours was not one of those sad friendships where the only thing that kept it burning was a shared set of dusty memories. It was just that sometimes it felt important to remember the person you used to be and the person you’d once told yourself you’d eventually become.

Dreams, it seemed, had a limited window. If you wanted to go after them, you couldn’t afford to wait.

I glanced at the passage. Unlike in college, the whole thing came into focus like a developing photograph. “Well, when we’re young, we live more authentically. But as we get older and become closer to our deaths, our perception changes. We live in a more fearful state.” I felt everyone staring at me. “It’s ironic because it’s when we’re older—when we’re approaching death and running out of time to live—that we should embrace life. However, most of us do the opposite.” I set my book on the table. I didn’t want to speak anymore.

Maybe that’s why I’d never divulged much about that part of myself to them. I didn’t want my passions turned into a joke. But that night, for the first time, it became clear that their humor was simply a cover for something else. Fear, maybe. Or sadness. Regret. Sentiments I understood.

“I just thought some parts of my life would be different by now,” I said, and I hoped he’d understand. “It has nothing to do with you or Tommy. You guys are my whole world.” My lip trembled. “I don’t know. There are just so many things I wanted to accomplish and change about myself by now.” I rubbed my hands across my face and discovered a bit of frosting in my eyebrow. God. I really was a mess. “Sometimes, it just feels like it’s too late.”

She pulled back. “I’ve heard new age types require a lot of extra sleep. They’re like babies, but with more whining and bigger bank accounts.”

Outside, the autumn air had become frigid. Andrew and I stumbled through our old neighborhood, eating pizza on greasy paper plates. We stopped on a street corner. “What do you miss the most?” Andrew tossed his plate in a sticker-marked garbage can. “About being here. About this whole part of our lives.” I looked around us. The glittering yet grimy buildings. The pockets of privacy and the perpetual noise. The whole city was just an experiment in contrast. Young and old. Rich and poor. Dreams and failures. Life and death. “The energy.” I tossed my paper plate; my previous, celebratory mood had deflated the moment I saw Poppy across the bar, all my earlier elation transformed into a pattern of question marks in my head. “The feeling that everything in my life was just getting started, that anything was possible.”

I guess that’s one thing you learn with age: the fact that our bodies and our hearts are capable of taking on so much. Birth. Death. All the events that unfold in between.

Once you hit a certain age, you run out of options for how to mark the ceremonial turning of the calendar page. Every part of that night—from the campy accessories to the lists of sanguine resolutions to the painfully late bedtime—was designed for the young. Still, you couldn’t sit home in your sweatpants eating takeout food, even though that’s what everyone wanted to do.

That was the thing I’d only recently come to understand: that we aren’t born with one life, but with two. The life we live before we understand loss, and the one we finally live once we realize that, despite our many efforts, our life will ultimately end.

Sometimes, you just have to sit quietly with your grief and give it room to breathe. You have to acknowledge that it is a part of you, and that it probably always will be.