Time passes both slow and fast at once. While it passes slow when I write or am waiting for something. I am awed by the speed at which payments become due again (Didn’t I just pay that?) and people age, myself in particular. I am almost certain that it was only yesterday that my Mom was reminding me to be home by dark. And yet I realize that I am married with three children and three grandchildren of my own. How is it I feel at times that I’m in two places at the same moment? Scenes like my Uncle Charlie and me sitting at the kitchen table are still so real to me. There he was teaching me to play chess while I was just a boy of seven. I have never really played more than a handful of games throughout these many years. I guess it would be best put as I know how to play chess but I’m not what you would call a chess player. I spent a few months teaching my daughter Lydia the rules of the game when she was 13. Now at 14 already she’s beating me! Not my letting her win beating me, it’s the real deal. I guess I should take pride that she is so good so fast. My having been her teacher and all. The truth is I don’t like losing. There’s that and the fact that she’s smarter than me. I became a member of an online chess club so that I can play my brother Chris. I’m rated as a beginner where I’ve played others from around the world. I’ve lost more times than I’ve won. However, that’s in part due to my unreliable internet connection. Quite a few of my losses were due to my losing the connection. Keeping my mind active seems to distract me from such things as the constant pain, and that I feel from being bedridden, or the numbness in my hands and feet. It’s also a little more difficult not to think of those things when I am wearing my gloves or finger splints that I use to try and straighten my fingers. I am trying to learn meditation. It will be difficult with all the activity that goes on around me, but it can be done I know. The duality of time can both frustrates and delights me. I realize that the road to my recovery is long as improvement is not quick to occur, and patience is certainly not a virtue of mine. Having just passed my 63rd New Year’s Day, with each year seeming to go by faster than the last, I start to think about how close I am to my average life expectancy. I know and believe I’m going to beat the odds. At the same time, I am a realist. I guess in that way I’m just like time. As a current TV commercial talks about, I am two things at once!
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