Time is a funny thing. Most of the time I do not think about it much.

I am vaguely aware that it is passing. I know I get excited for Friday and pray the week passes quickly. On Sunday afternoon I might be outside watching Charlie and think I want this moment to stay. I want time to freeze. It never does. I have had more time recently to think about time.

I was recently blindsided by grief and the missing of someone I had lost. It got me thinking about who I was when I knew that person and it felt like I had lived several lives since then. It was an odd feeling to realize that I had changed that much, what happened to that person?

My best friend was in town. It had been three years since I had been able to last hug her. And as I hugged her goodbye, I realized neither of us were the same people we were when this friendship began. Where had those people gone? Why had we not noticed them slipping away? Does she miss the old her, like I am now missing the old me? I love the people we have become but when did this happen.

I took on the task of cleaning out the garage the other day. I came across totes filled with memories. Things I used to like. Remnants of different versions of myself. I sorted through pictures with people I could not imagine my life without and here I was not in any of their lives. How did that happen?

Where did all the old me’s go? Are they all within me? Am I collection of all of them? No one ever warned me that time was sneaky. That you would change in ways that you had not intended or realized. I was caught off guard by the wave of extreme sadness that flooded me in the garage. As I sat down, I began to cry. How many parts of me had I let slip away? What parts were better gone? What should I have fought to keep? Who would I be next?

Everything I have ever experienced has changed me. Every book, every movie, relationship or casual encounter, the places I go, the causes I believe in. I became keenly aware of time and how much of it had passed, completely unaware of how much I had left. As I wiped my eyes and stood up, I felt loss for all the things that had traveled through my life and a deep gratitude for them bringing me to this point.

I will view time as a gift from now on. It is precious and cannot be turned back. I want to be conscious of how I spend my time. I want someone to go through there garage years latter and remember me and like the version of me that they got. Time is a funny thing.