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About a month ago, I started wearing an analog watch, a men’s Timex Camper Military Field watch. Its round, low-profile design appealed to me. They stopped manufacturing these watches back in the ‘80s, so I couldn’t just go to the Timex website and buy one, I had to purchase one used from eBay. The watch passes an electric current through a quartz crystal that vibrates at a frequency of thirty thousand times per second. It keeps very precise time. The outer chassis is dark brown and smooth. The watch face is black with the words TIMEX QUARTZ at the top and a symbol for water near the bottom, indicating a certain level of waterproofing. The hands are white but coated in some sort of green glow-in-the-dark material, presumably so soldiers could keep time in a foxhole. In very quiet rooms, I can hear it, the passing of time. Tick tick tick. “Cesium atoms absorb microwaves with a frequency of 9,192,631,770 cycles per second, which then defines the international scientific unit for time, the second.” The strap is navy green and deteriorating, indicating a very used, timeworn watch. I sometimes wonder if this watch was worn by a soldier, if that soldier ever erased someone while wearing it, and if so, which numbers the hands were pointing at when that all went down. Do different people experience time differently? “Gravitational time dilation is a form of time dilation, an actual difference of elapsed time between two events, as measured by observers situated at varying distances from a gravitating mass.” The mayfly dies in a day, does that day feel like forever? “The lower the gravitational potential, the slower time passes, speeding up as the gravitational potential increases.” If I flung myself into a black hole, would my time stretch to infinity? What does time feel like? Does it stop for the dead? How would we ever know? I often wonder what that soldier would think now, now that some civilian is wearing his watch, would he be offended, pleased, nostalgic, would he experience some post-traumatic stress response, would he even remember? I don’t know. Where does the time go? I’m not into military stuff. I’ve never even held a gun. The first time I saw this watch was on the wrist of one MacGyver from the ‘80s television show MacGyver. It was then I knew that I had to have this watch. It was not only an aesthetic thing, but also a sentimental thing. My grandma and I used to watch the show all the time when I was a young boy. She barely remembers that, her mind and body now ravaged by the passing of time. Tick tick tick.
“Time, he's waiting in the wings. He speaks of senseless things. His script is you and me, boy.”
You will never truly feel the passing of time until you have children. This is a bold claim, I know, but it is one I fully believe. You may think you feel the passing of time now, but you will never truly feel it until you have a child of your own. No one knows the passing of time better than a parent who has discarded an old toy. The first haircut. The second haircut. The third. Tick tick tick. Dismantling the crib, replacing it with a full-sized bed with protective railings. Putting old stacking blocks and miniature farm sets and wooden alphabet puzzles in cardboard boxes. Donating the remnants of youth to Goodwill. Selling the old changing table on Facebook Marketplace. Tick tick tick. Looking at pictures taken just months ago. “When did he get so big?” The first word. The second word. The sentence. “Where did the time go?” Where does the time go? What happens to it? Do we live only in the present? “Time is probably the most measured quantity on Earth. It tells us when to wake and when to sleep, when to eat, work and play, when buses, trains and planes will depart and arrive. It helps organize and coordinate our lives.” Did the past even happen, what if we forget? Is it all relative? Semantics? Graduating from a high chair to a small table to a full-sized table. Baby formula to cow’s milk to juice and so on. Mush to hard food to Happy Meals and so forth. The first smile. The first laugh. The first steps. Diapers to pull-ups to whitey tighties to boxer shorts. Tick tick tick. “Ball” to “daddy” to “I love you” to “I hate you” to “I'm sorry” to “I'm getting a job” to “I'm moving out of the house” to “I’m getting married” to “I’ll take care of you now, Dad.” The last smile. The last laugh. The last steps. When will we know? Will we ever know, when our time comes? My twelve-year-old daughter wants so badly to be eighteen. She applies makeup and talks on the phone and wears band t-shirts for bands she doesn’t know a single song by. She is excited about getting her first period. She has no appreciation of her youth, resents it almost. She has no idea. Late at night, when I lay in bed with my two-year-old son, helping him fall asleep, I can hear the Timex, tick tick tick. “What’s that?” he says. “That’s just the passing of time, son.” Then I play rain sounds from the Smart Speaker so that he doesn't have to hear it. Tick tick tick. He liked Sesame Street, then he liked Little Bear, now he likes Paw Patrol. He's getting into Power Rangers. I have to buy him new clothes because his shirts are getting too small and his pants are becoming too tight. Pencil marks on the wall, tagged with name and date, progressively getting taller. When he blows out the candles, we celebrate out loud, but we mourn inside. He used to say mama and dada, now he says I want, I want, I want, give me that, mine. He's becoming less cuddly, more cautious, more aware. My daughter wouldn't be caught dead giving me a hug in public. She winces when I say “I love you.” The tragedy of youth is that they never appreciate it, the mercy of youth is that they have neither the experience nor the foresight to do so. They live in the moment, never dwelling on the passing of time. Imagine how awful it would be, to be young and obsessed with the passing of time, tick tick tick, always aware of your own youth slipping away. Muscles aching, wrinkles forming, thoughts muddled and confused. The young are spared this psychic dread. This comes later. I see it in my son’s deep blue eyes. A nascent spark, an intelligence just flickering into existence, soon to become a bright flame. He doesn't know it yet, but he will. Tick tick tick. Soon, it will show him.
And I’m so sorry.
“Time, he's waiting in the wings. He speaks of senseless things. His script is you and me, boy.”
You will never truly feel the passing of time until you have children. This is a bold claim, I know, but it is one I fully believe. You may think you feel the passing of time now, but you will never truly feel it until you have a child of your own. No one knows the passing of time better than a parent who has discarded an old toy. The first haircut. The second haircut. The third. Tick tick tick. Dismantling the crib, replacing it with a full-sized bed with protective railings. Putting old stacking blocks and miniature farm sets and wooden alphabet puzzles in cardboard boxes. Donating the remnants of youth to Goodwill. Selling the old changing table on Facebook Marketplace. Tick tick tick. Looking at pictures taken just months ago. “When did he get so big?” The first word. The second word. The sentence. “Where did the time go?” Where does the time go? What happens to it? Do we live only in the present? “Time is probably the most measured quantity on Earth. It tells us when to wake and when to sleep, when to eat, work and play, when buses, trains and planes will depart and arrive. It helps organize and coordinate our lives.” Did the past even happen, what if we forget? Is it all relative? Semantics? Graduating from a high chair to a small table to a full-sized table. Baby formula to cow’s milk to juice and so on. Mush to hard food to Happy Meals and so forth. The first smile. The first laugh. The first steps. Diapers to pull-ups to whitey tighties to boxer shorts. Tick tick tick. “Ball” to “daddy” to “I love you” to “I hate you” to “I'm sorry” to “I'm getting a job” to “I'm moving out of the house” to “I’m getting married” to “I’ll take care of you now, Dad.” The last smile. The last laugh. The last steps. When will we know? Will we ever know, when our time comes? My twelve-year-old daughter wants so badly to be eighteen. She applies makeup and talks on the phone and wears band t-shirts for bands she doesn’t know a single song by. She is excited about getting her first period. She has no appreciation of her youth, resents it almost. She has no idea. Late at night, when I lay in bed with my two-year-old son, helping him fall asleep, I can hear the Timex, tick tick tick. “What’s that?” he says. “That’s just the passing of time, son.” Then I play rain sounds from the Smart Speaker so that he doesn't have to hear it. Tick tick tick. He liked Sesame Street, then he liked Little Bear, now he likes Paw Patrol. He's getting into Power Rangers. I have to buy him new clothes because his shirts are getting too small and his pants are becoming too tight. Pencil marks on the wall, tagged with name and date, progressively getting taller. When he blows out the candles, we celebrate out loud, but we mourn inside. He used to say mama and dada, now he says I want, I want, I want, give me that, mine. He's becoming less cuddly, more cautious, more aware. My daughter wouldn't be caught dead giving me a hug in public. She winces when I say “I love you.” The tragedy of youth is that they never appreciate it, the mercy of youth is that they have neither the experience nor the foresight to do so. They live in the moment, never dwelling on the passing of time. Imagine how awful it would be, to be young and obsessed with the passing of time, tick tick tick, always aware of your own youth slipping away. Muscles aching, wrinkles forming, thoughts muddled and confused. The young are spared this psychic dread. This comes later. I see it in my son’s deep blue eyes. A nascent spark, an intelligence just flickering into existence, soon to become a bright flame. He doesn't know it yet, but he will. Tick tick tick. Soon, it will show him.
And I’m so sorry.
