An open letter to Father Time.

Dear Father Time,

We need to talk.

I know it’s kind of your job to, well, keep rolling along, but I’m wondering if maybe you could chill out a little. I’m not sure how it happened, but I attended a high school reunion last weekend…commemorating the 20 years that have gone by since graduation. That can’t be right. I think there’s been some kind of mistake.

Did you slip me into a time warp by accident? I mean, just yesterday, I was 10 years old, twirling in the kitchen with Amanda- and now I’m twirling two mini versions of her under my arm. I’m still reading Shel Silverstein, but it’s to them. Ladies lunch has a few extra (little) people at the table these days. I’m sailing along, thinking we’re still dancing to the same music and laughing at the same jokes…until someone small requests a dance party to Taylor Swift and calls the 80s “retro.” That doesn’t work.

I grew up hearing about you. “Time is not on our side.” “We don’t have time for that.” “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” “Time is not our friend.” “Time waits for no man.” Doesn’t it make you feel bad to know that people talk about you like that?

At the reunion, I didn’t see the new gray hairs or balding foreheads or additional pounds or extra laugh lines- I saw the faces I remember.  I mean, don’t we still kind of look like this? Has that much really changed?

Sure, morning comes earlier and late nights hurt more… but that’s normal. I felt this way at our ten-year reunion. Is it possible that was a decade ago? It’s difficult to piece together the years that have gone by.

I guess if I think about it, Amanda and I did graduate from elementary school. And then Junior High. We giggled about boyfriends in high school and learned to drive and cried at high school graduation. I moved to Colorado. I got a bachelor’s degree. I worked in a hundred restaurants. I got engaged. I got married. I moved to Utah. I learned to cook. I got a good job. I got promotions. My four closest friends from home added 10 children to the world. My heart was broken. I got divorced. I got laid off. I was depressed and found myself again. I fell in love. I traveled the country. I got engaged and built a house with my future husband. I got married. I moved to Park City.

You had a hand in all of it. I can agree that you do, in fact, heal wounds. So maybe you know what you’re doing, sometimes. But lately, you seem to be passing a little too quickly for my taste.

It wasn’t always this way with you. There were many times where you would drag on, slow as molasses. The days leading up to Christmas, or prom.  The minutes before my driving test. The hours when my closest friends were in labor with their first babies. The first dark nights as a divorcee. The torturous 180 seconds until the results of a pregnancy test show. But now? I can’t catch you.

Don’t you miss our endless summer days together? The easy mornings before wrinkles and the number on the scale? The miles during my solo road trips, just you and me and the open road? Those long, uninterrupted afternoon naps? Those hours we lost together, buried in a good book? The rejuvenating moments in quiet bubble baths when you seem to stand still? I do. I look back on those times and wonder where you’ve gone…

Father Time, I’m hoping we can work this out. Maybe there’s a secret pause button you can share with me… because I just blinked and yet another 10 years went by. We’ve been through 13,725 days together…don’t leave me behind now. Please, please slow down.

I’m getting too old to chase you.

Yours (until you run out on me),

Amber