time flies

One of the great ironies of life is that when you want time to pass it tends to creep sluggishly by, yet when you'd prefer to slow down, time speeds past you like a flash of light.

At BYU, I took a class during which we had to write one paper (a wonderful concept for an English major - the papers never cease really). However, we had to be prepared to read that paper aloud to the class on the last day. I dreaded this day. It wasn't that I thought my paper was poor - I thought it was fine. I had taken a few classes from the professor, one of my favorites, I knew his grading style and what he was looking for, and I was pretty sure I'd even get an A. The problem was that I have a real abhorrence for speaking in front of people. I can make conversation with just about anyone. But the speaking to people? I will do just about anything, including clean the fridge out (isn't that the worst household chore? I dread it), to avoid it.

During our last class, it was recognized that there would be a few people who didn't read their paper because there simply would not be enough time. Oh, how I prayed I could be one of those few. I sat there, my head slightly ducked but not so hidden so as to attract attention, watching the clock. The second hand moved slower than I've ever seen. Minutes seemed like hours while undergraduates shared their philosophical views of the working class in nineteenth century England (depressing, yes). But somehow I made it through those agonizing fifty minutes without being called on. My paper remained silent, and I survived possibly one of the longest hours of my life.

On the flip side, it's rather astonishing to me how minutes can fly by, even when you don't want them to, even when you're physically willing time to slow, begging it to crawl. It's so unreal to me that seven months ago today at (approximately) 6:27 p.m., I met this little girl.

The minutes since have fallen through the neck of the hour glass of life with alarming speed. There are nights when I dread putting my baby to bed because I know when she wakes up, she will be bigger. Another day will be gone and another day full of new milestones and discoveries awaits us, a prospect both unbelievably exciting but also a little sad. My little baby is growing so fast.

I have a favorite quote, one that hung above my bed during my single days. I have it mostly memorized I've read it so many times:

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Poet)

I try to live everything, every single moment, especially those I share with Annabelle. I know that some filter through my fingers unnoticed or poorly spent, but the seven months of motherhood I've experienced so far have been some of my favorite moments. Ever. While the minutes, hours, and days seem to literally fly, they are still some of the most wonderfully flying minutes I've ever known. 

I think that many of you would agree with me when I say it's nearly impossible to use words to describe the love you feel for your children or to describe the amazing and uniquely discernible joy of motherhood. What I can say, however, is that time flies. And somehow your small baby becomes a big (big, big) baby. And although time does indeed fly, the moments combine to be some of the most beautiful expanses of time you've ever known.