Time, Progress and Gratitude
So my thoughts on my journey and my perception of time within it... I'll add a note here that I'm in the latter half of my forties, just so that you can gauge where you & I are at on the invisible timeline that we call life. It's funny to me that across the years time seems to have morphed.
When I was younger, under the age of ten, I had NO perception of time, everything seemed a blur, days melding into one long event, only dotted by crystal clear memories of dreadfully painful moments, and the occasional joy to eclipse the mundane.
Then came my teens, and time seemed to consist of blocks or seasons: school terms, half term break, holidays, summer camps, teen buddies & playing squash (the English equivalent of racquetball) & table tennis (otherwise known as ping pong.) Add in learning to drive and babysitting for some ridiculously cute families, that was the teens.
The twenties were filled with travel and adventures far and wide, meeting my husband to be, marrying and completing 8 years of studies. The concept of time shifted to be a capsule laden with potential, bursting with energy and a hopeful endlessness... add the infinity emoji here! It had begun as a blur, walked through blinkered seasons of angst, and now was starting to look & feel ahead into the unknown but 'ready to be ripe' tomorrow.
The thirties were filled with birthing: both babies and business. Not forgetting to throw in a chronic sickness for good measure. Time was both fast and near static simultaneously. Time was quick and flighty, rapid growth happening on all fronts, such quick changes that she was like the flight of a bumblebee impossible to grab hold of or halt. Then she took the form of a cloud, seemingly immobile yet gone the next time we look up.
Somehow, in my forties, I'm seeing time, and it's fruitful labors, happen in five to ten-year increments. The efforts and choices that we make, so tiny, so daily, so 'now' add up to make decades, which in turn are the seedbed for successful progress.
If I were to have heard in my teens that emotional healing takes decades, that inner change, my self-improvement, marriages, raising children, the psychotherapy of a human/equine relationship, successful, self-sustaining, generous & fruitful business takes decades of tiny choices in the right direction... Ooh, I might have taken a breath and reconsidered for a moment in time.
BUT I do know that it's all worth it. It is. And the fruit is so tasty on the journey, the connections we make are like gold, the people that we meet on the path are beautiful, their vulnerability, transparency, suffering and all. Those long-married couples are a rarity. Those generational businesses are few and far between. Those endeavors of kindness, so selfless that have become the bedrock of community. Please slow down and appreciate the stuff that takes work and decades to build. Operate in gratitude.