Time and How We Hold It

grief follows time, but so does the beauty of moments well noticed

Time moves differently depending on where we stand. Some days stretch endlessly, heavy with waiting, while others disappear in a blink, leaving only the faintest trace of where they went. We talk about time as something to manage, to spend wisely, to never waste, yet the more we try to grip it, the more it slips through our fingers. Something that when I became a mother, I began to understand deeply as motherhood has a way of making us more aware of time and how quickly it moves. But also, so does simply getting older.

We often think of time as linear, always moving forward. But memory bends it, nostalgia loops it back, and longing makes it pause. A fragrance, a song, or a familiar street can pull the past into the present so vividly that, for a second, you exist in both. Have you ever caught yourself in one of those moments - standing in your own life, yet suddenly seeing it from a distance, as if you were already remembering it?

Those moments can be so special and beautiful and yet sometimes full of grief. Ohhh how I feel the grief of passing time with my children. The passing of moments, ages, stages, chapters. The passing of the small, sacred things: mispronounced words, two tiny bottom teeth at one, the missing one on top at seven, when the clothes become too small, the toy outgrown, the art projects aged, the favorite lovey that eventually becomes a nothing.

Time keeps passing even though we all try to control it. We may try to freeze it, stretch it, slow it down, speed it up, rewind it, but we all know we can't control it. And as I grapple with the grief of time, every single day - when one of them comes in in the morning just a stretch taller, or another says something so adorably naive - I’m trying not only to clutch on tightly, but to pay even more attention. To emboss moments just the way you would press a thick, waxy seal onto an envelope - hoping to keep them permanent and untouched in my memory and heart forever. I'm trying to be more mindful to not let the big, small, or in-between moments go unnoticed. To hold more of them by collecting moments the way some people collect shells or pressed flowers - tucking them away, not to hoard, but to revisit when I need them.

Maybe that’s the most generous thing we can do for ourselves when it comes to our time here - to slow down long enough to recognize when we are inside a moment worth keeping. To linger a little longer in the warmth of a conversation. To look at your child exactly as they are for a beat longer. To feel the weight of their head on your shoulder, to notice the light at golden hour when everything feels just a little softer. To let our hands rest on the pages of a book before turning them. To sit with the feeling of something beautiful before rushing on to what’s next.

Because time moves forward, always. But the way we move within it is something we can control and hold onto forever.