time out of mind*

My hair is a mess. I see myself in the reflection of my monitor and I laugh. You think I don’t, but I do, I laugh out loud because I am always forgetting what I look like, somehow I expect to see the 20-year-old me when I look in the mirror, but that girl is gone, out galavanting somewhere, she has better things to do.

It isn’t a matter of time, the years have passed, I remember them. It is a matter of mirrors. I have always wondered if you feel the same on the inside when you are eighty. I feel the same, in the core, the kernel of my being, as I always have, but I look in the mirror and someone older stands before me. I know I am in there, I know that if I strip away the mercury that lies beneath the glass, I will see all the way to my center.

I am not inert, I change each day, time moves through me, and I am not afraid. I am not chained to the notion of youth, I understand, I accept, but I do not cheer time’s passing. I don’t regret it, either. Minutes tick away on the clock whether we watch them or not. They pass us by or embrace us. We get to choose.

I can think of time as the enemy, it is easy to make time the bad guy. But time has no emotion, it cannot be cruel. It just stands there, a pillar of salt. It is just time.

It forgives but never forgets and moves forward but never returns and we stand on the sidelines and cheer or watch or turn our backs, but it keeps on playing. It is just time.

We are on time, we are out of time, we need more time, we take the time, we take a time out, time is on our side, time waits for no man, we try to put time in a bottle.

It is just time.

Time bursts all our bubbles, time stops us short,
time thinks a mirror is envy.

It is all that there is and all that there isn’t.

It is just time.

* title from Bob Dylan’s album

12 Responses to “time out of mind*”

  • Stina Says:

    So, true…. This is great, Kel! You have such wisdom; and that, in my opinion, is when a being is in touch with her “timelessness”….. You have direct access to your soul, which lives on forever, and there is an ability to laugh at the stuff that would terrify us if we didn’t have a sense that we’ve done this all before…..

  • Marcie Says:

    Yes…yes. Just last night I had dinner with 7 20-year olds..and not being able to see myself..I could have sworn I was still the same age as all of them. Time passes…and yes – it’s JUST time. It’s not our essence!

  • beth Says:

    time has given me more wrinkles than i think appropriate…..

    i’m such a whiner, arent’ i ??

    {beautiful post…..just beautiful}

  • Megan Says:

    Thank you for this… I have recently been struggling with where I am in life; that I am two years away from 30 and afraid that I have “wasted” time and am “running out of” time… while my logical side tells me that’s not true, the uber-critical emotional side of me is being a bully. I look in the mirror and both wonder what/who I see and accept/love that person. Your posts always strike a chord with me… again, thank you 🙂

    • Mrs. Mediocrity Says:

      Oh, thank YOU for such kind words, and yes accept/love because that is the best, the best we can do…

  • Around Town | the domestic fringe Says:

    […] Time out of Mind @ that’s mrs. mediocrity to you […]

  • Vonda Says:

    I love this post! I had an epiphany one day when I was feeling still twenty-our souls are eternal-I will feel still the twenty year old me when I am eighty. That is a look forward to thought. Now if I can tell my body it needs to start acting eternal!

  • Kristin Says:

    That photo is absolutely stunning. I love it. This post is also beautiful and timely. I’ve been ruminating on the passing of time lately – it seems to be speeding up relentlessly and it makes me anxious. I need to make peace with time. And age. I’m hoping it’s like a cold pool and I’ll get used to the water once I’m in. 🙂 Thank you for this post.

  • kim klassen Says:

    really truly a brilliant post.

    the other night, my webcam was on…behind all my other open windows… so once i shut things down, there i was…. and to be honest for a brief moment i didn’t recognize myself… kind of a strange feeling actually….

    thanks for this… you are awesome!

  • Debi Says:

    Oh goodness. My mother tells me everything – too much, really – and I remember the time she told me she’d looked in the mirror after a bath and there were the breasts of an old woman attached to her body. Stop, I laughed and told her, stop! I don’t want to hear. Last week, a photo session reduced me to tears – I look 10 years older than I did last year I sobbed and boohooed. Miss Robin of Bird Tweets set me to rights – it was her birthday when I emailed her and she was celebrating.

    This is terrific. Age becomes you. 🙂

  • Debi Says:

    PS – I have you beat by a decade, and by that I mean I am older. 🙂

  • wholly jeanne Says:

    i hate mirrors.

    but i love that you write about the very thing i was chewing on last week.

    or was it last month?

    maybe last decade?

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