Lost time is never found again

This doesn’t need elaboration. But, as is my slightly left-of-centre style, I’m just going to do it anyway.

As you know, I work in retail. Which means I work in a shop, and statistically 50% of people who walk through the door are just browsing. When I approach them and ask about their best interests within my walls, quite a few will say “Oh. no. It’s okay, I’m just killing time.” I have nothing against these people – every second of our lives is time, and it may as well be spent doing something useful. But how useful is aimlessly wandering through shops whilst waiting for the hours to disappear? Everybody is guilty of wasting time what with facebook and twitter and the glorious feeling you get after a long day in the office when you slump into the couch and just sit and stare at the box. It’s okay, we all need to relax. But unfortunately for me, there just never seems to be enough time to do nothing.

Have you noticed how children count time? They calculate how far away things are by sleeps. I can’t seem to fathom the fact that it’s September already. In fact, it will be October in just a few sleeps – dry, hot and sweaty days are coming, and my birthday is only seventeen sleeps away. Dreadful. Literally, each year will pass us by slightly faster than any prior to it, which creates the impression that things are moving along quicker. They’re not. We’re just getting older and experiencing more.

Recently I have realised how much I have grown up, particularly in the last year or so. I have grown and matured and changed more than I thought I would- these days going out with friends for the soul purpose of getting completely obliterated, hence writing off entire weekends in the process and working just to pay for said weekends disgusts me. Eighteen months ago? That was me. That was who I was. A crazy little party animal that never wanted to stop. Now? Early nights, enjoying my books and my very productive weekends, and keeping most of my sanity is much more important. On the weekend I went to a friends house for drinks and a very awesome Beatles Rock Band evening. It was so much fun… until I woke the following morning feeling those feelings that only somebody with a hangover would feel. Not cool. Not cool at all.

My life plan has changed. It was something along the lines of “meh… as long as I don’t wake up one day and realise I’m old, I’ll be okay”, which is the precise path I was heading down. Life with no plan, no ambition, just carpe diem? In context it sounds like buckets of fun, and it’s honestly nothing short of that; I did it for almost five years. Was it just getting a couple of years older that transformed me from that blazè non-caring opinion to thinking seriously about children and life savings, and really truly thinking about the future? It’s so much more delicate now than “kids some day, two would be nice” to “Five years from now we will be thinking very long and hard about children. We need to look closely at our careers and our incomes. For so many legitimate reasons, Adelaide doesn’t seem suitable for us to raise a family. Let’s move somewhere a little smaller, a little friendlier, and give our babies the relaxed and easygoing youth we had in Broken Hill.”

When did my brain change gears? How did this just happen?

Benjamin Franklin was definately onto something when he informed the world of his epiphany, that lost time is never found again.

I feel as though moving to Adelaide was a truly amazing had-to-happen awakening into the real world experience for me. And I did just that, I crawled out from under my rock and noticed the city lights and absorbed every last event and happening that crossed my path. But in retrospect, with my newfound view on the rest of my life, I wasted so much time. I look around me, Summer is coming, and yet another birthday I have to deal with is creeping up. I’m four years older, and while I have great memories and fantastic stories and what not, when I compare my life to that of some of my friends – like those who have completed university and are on their way into big careers, or other friends who were sensible and now own houses and have travelled the world, I feel a slight pang of jealousy. I cannot envy the majority of my dearest friends though; they’re the ones who are now however old they happen to be, are in the same life position I am in, but with no prospect or desire to change. I love them to bits… but that is not a place I wish to visit.

Actually, several of my friends have children now. By all means I am happy as hell for them. However, only one of my closest girlfriends with a child made the concious decision – it was not an “oh my goodness, now what?” calamity. I feel rather blessed that Dave and I haven’t fallen pregnant by accident, and even more blessed that I have been with the man of my dreams since I was in high school. I’d be lying if I said that about any of my friends. These amazing young people have had this non-decision thrown upon them, and taken it in their stride. Before too long it doesn’t matter – they’re blessed to be mothers and fathers and part of a family, a network. But there is something I am too shy to ask my friends. If they didn’t slip up and become pregnant in the first place, would they be as happy? It’s a rhetorical question nobody can answer. Life has panned out on such opposite end of the spectrum for us. I am still curious.

In twenty years time, these friends of mine will have adult offspring, and perhaps a teenager/child or two thrown in too. If my plan works as well as it has been for me, I will have much younger children, and I will also ideally have a house to call my own, and a husband who just happens to be my highschool sweetheart. For my above mentioned friends, if they had a plan to begin with, it was thrown in the air and jumbled up, and now they are happy and making the most of what life they have. But how angry will they be when mid life comes along and they’re old enough to just be reluctant and bitter about the world?

I could have travelled the continents, I could have a $400,000 mortgage on a Sarah-like little home somewhere in suburbia, I could have followed my high school ambition and studied media. In the words of almost every teacher I had, if I was willing to put my mind to it, I could have done anything I damn well pleased. And I chose to just activate my cruise control and let it be.

The famous year has passed of me growing into something a little more normal, a little more respectable. Now what? Well, now I’m not quite so petrified of getting older, I have quite an impressive savings account, and my sanity stays by my side 99.2% of the time. My weekends are full of social and productive happenings that very seldom result in inebriation, I have found the balance and am feeling happy and healthy, and I have finally, at the ripe age of 22, accepted the fact that I cannot just walk out of this life once it all gets too frustrating, and have learnt to just enjoy it. And, that is what I am doing. I’m loving it.

How do you feel? How is your life treating you? Plans? Options? Comment box is just inches below. :)