Friday, October 2, 2009

Thank God it's Friday...

Finally Friday.

Somehow, this week has lasted longer than usual. I'm not sure why - there were exciting things afoot (with CWO magazine, and with both of my sisters), good news on a few fronts (my book release was Thursday and my oldest son was chosen as Student of the Month for September), and three soccer games (2 wins, 1 loss). And yet... last weekend seems so far, far away in my distant, hazy memory.

Does that ever happen to you? One of my friends from college had a theory about why this happens. (She was also my maid of honor at my wedding, and has lots of other theories... but that's another story.)

When we were freshmen at Colgate University, she used to explain how "time travels in waves." Like a funky geometric algorithm, or something like an algebraic sine wave. Okay, I'm not very good with the math facts, but when Nancy explained it, it made sense. The beer helped.

The same way that light and sound travel in waves applies to time, except with a twist. She said that the waves could travel in different patterns, some faster and some slower. So when you're having fun at a fraternity party and "all of a sudden" it's 3 a.m.? That's a fast wave. Sitting in class waiting for the professor to finish lecturing about the cell structure of paramecium, watching the clock more than the chalkboard? That's a slow wave. Like the ocean, the waves had different speeds.

It made sense in college. As I got older, though, time seemed to fly more than it seemed to creep, and I began to doubt the wisdom of Nancy's words. Looking back on my twenties, it seems they were gone in a flash. But then, in my thirties, I had kids. Time began to travel in waves once more. Looking back, I can remember some moments with crystalline clarity, and other times (entire years?) are a little blurry.

I remember each birth, but not the hospital stays that followed. I remember the first day of kindergarten for each child, but not much of anything else from that year of school. Selective memory? Or the product of geometric malfunction? Who can tell for sure?

What I do know is that time is traveling in waves for me once more, and the past week was a long, undulating wave that has finally reached the shoreline. T.G.I.F.

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