Mandatory Time Travel

-Bob Seger, Like a Rock

There's good news and bad news. The good news is that time travel exists. The bad news is, contrary to science fiction, you can only travel in one direction and it's mandatory. What a cruel prank life has played on us all that in reality we can only travel forward through time with our past nothing more than footprints to be obscured by the trampling of future generations.

Bob Seger has always had a talent for expressing through his songs the unyielding, unmerciful nature of the most notorious and elusive thief we have ever known - Time. In the simple lyric above, he is able to capture the brutal realization that is a running theme through many of his songs, and a reality that everyone must confront at their own personal age markers which they have chosen as their points of reflection - The ugly truth that time doesn't cater to anyone. It makes its own rules and enforces them with extreme prejudice. We can imagine and dream with the science fiction writers about the possibility of time travel where we can vicariously defeat the constraints of this most sinister criminal we call time and return to our youth with the wisdom of age to relive or correct our past in a cosmic do over. However, when our literary journey has ended, we are no younger, wiser or any more adept at manipulating time's laws, and ironically, we have also surrendered the time we have spent immersed in this fictional dream chasing a mirage of false hope.

The personal age marker that triggers introspection about growing older and the inevitable dwindling of our balance of time is different for everyone. It may be reaching the milestone ages of 30 or 40 or even 50 for those who are late bloomers or in denial or just too busy with the complexities of life to consider such a mind boggling concept. Your age markers, like your mileage may vary. It might have been activated when you discovered your first gray hair or when you started going bald. Maybe it was when you became a parent or a grandparent, when your youngest child graduated high school, or when your children married. It could have been a more subtle event such as realizing as an adult that your parents, weathered by time, are starting to show their age, and that they represent a mirror reflection of your inevitable future.

Personally, I've had multiple age marker events in my life and I'm sure I will continue to have them for the duration of my time travel experience. I was what you might consider an early bloomer with the age marker events. I remember being reluctant to the point of excessive dread and worry when I was on the cusp of transitioning from grade school to middle school. I wasn't ready to make what I considered at the time such a giant leap and accept the responsibilities and burdens that came with this early life progression. I was either advanced for my age, or just screwed up, maybe a combination of the two. Regardless of the reason, this was not my last age marker event. I've encountered many others along the path - When I went through puberty and I was expected to relinquish my childhood and all of its fringe benefits (imagination, wonder, innocence), when I had to bid farewell to my teens and reluctantly embrace my twenties and adulthood as dictated by society. Just as I was coming to terms with this and I thought I had it handled, I found myself reluctantly pushing the button for the thirtieth floor on the elevator of life. It was at this age marker that I began reminiscing about some of the previous age markers and how great it would be to revisit them. However, that is not an option. The elevator only goes up and it travels at its own pace. All you can do is ride where it takes you.

Time is an obstinate companion and a deceptive one too. For a child, a few minutes can be an eternity. If you don't believe this, try putting a child in a time-out for a few minutes and witness how unbearable and unfathomable this pinch of time is for the child, and how inconsequential and brief it is for the adult handing out the punishment. Before the adult can even sit down and enjoy a moment of peace, the child's sentence has expired. On the other hand, for an adult, a year can seem like a few minutes. As you've gotten older, hasn't the time between one birthday and the next or one Christmas and the next seemed to have gotten shorter? A child has a limited frame of reference when it comes to the passage of time. A child has his whole life ahead of him. He hasn't even entertained the idea, that time is not infinite, while an adult has been dealing with the finite nature of time for long enough to know the stakes and the costs of the ticking clock.

If you start to ponder time, it can really put things into perspective. For instance, when I graduated high school, my mother was six years younger than I am now. Back when I graduated, I'm sure that seemed much older to me than how I feel at this time, just as I must currently seem ancient to my kids as they still splash around in the metaphorical kiddie pool on the time line of life.

Having children, another age marker and point of reflection, really makes you contemplate the progression of time. One day you are changing your child's diapers and the next you are teaching them how to drive. In the blink of an eye, my two oldest children went from grasping my hand and holding it firmly and unconditionally when we walked together in public, to walking several paces ahead of me out of fear that one of their friends might see them with their dad, which of course in their minds would cause them social ruin. Significant transformations like this happen too quickly when you experience them through adult eyes. They are the childhood equivalent of the spark of summer vacation being snuffed out by the first cold breath of fall as all of the promises and planning of what seemed like an eternity are scattered like dying embers in the cold wind of the approaching season.

At this point on my travel through time, that summer spark still glows with intensity. My youngest child is still grasping my hand in public and walking with me unashamed and unaware of how time will redefine this effortless, unconditional gesture in just a few years. But I can feel a whisper threat of the chilly breath of fall on the back of my neck. As painful as this realization is to me, I've been here before and I will have to cope with it again. I have the insight now, thanks to my older children and previous age marking events to understand that even though I can't disobey the laws of time, I can hold my child's hand a little tighter and listen to his words a little closer, savoring this moment and appreciating its importance before the next all too familiar age marking event occurs. We can't break out of the stranglehold grasp of the hands of time, but we can enjoy and appreciate the time we have along the way as it is happening and before it slips away. Outside of science fiction, this is the best we can hope for when traveling through time. It's our only recourse.