2019 & Time

Dear 2019, Or should I address this to Time? Maybe I should address it to both, seeing as to how this letter concerns the doings of both. Dear 2019 and Time,                Can I ask that you both be gentler this trip around the sun? 2019, sir, I understand that it’s your job to shape and mold us, but I have become hardened clay, left out on a potters stone slab for too long. Until water is added I will break and crumble at the slightest pressure. You are not a gardener, left here to tend to the flowers, to pluck the weeds, to add water; but I fear that as you take leave and start adding stresses and pressures, that I will crack and crumbled and be nothing more than a pile of dried up clay, nothing more than dirt, left to be swept and thrown out when Time calls for cleaning up. Time, ma’am, I know that you do not care what a human asks, “Speed up” and “Slowdown” are overused pleas to you. But please, I ask that you give me enough of yourself, to finish what needs to be done. You have already taught me that asking for you to grab the hands of a clock, to stop the tick tock of a world that must keep spinning, will lead to others or myself being miserable down the line. I won’t ask you slowdown, for with my requests of a moment to think, there are an equal number of shouts from others begging for you to hurry; how can one compete with voices just as loud and powerful as their own? They cannot. I spent so much of 2018 trying to shout louder, trying to be heard above the crashing wave of the tsunami of voices, to call for help in a sea of drowning souls, what did I learn? That I cannot spend my time fighting the thundering voices that call from all around, each one begging for a life preserver, instead I must shut my mouth in order to keep the water from invading my lungs with the only purpose to both burn and drown me, I must kick off my shoes and learn to swim. And swim I will.                 Time, you are known as the thief of all. You rust joints, crack bones, chip paint, splinter wood, you destroy reigning empires and you raise dangerous governments. It took much of you to create this name for yourself, one that strikes fear into many. 2019, you’ve not yet been given a label, you have the opportunity to be remembered as an age of rest, as an era of growth. Take heed of this warning. Do not fall into the trap. You’re a hare walking through the forest, the bog is your home, you do as you please. Yet these pesky humans continue to enter your domain and manipulate the land. You walk between two shrubs, Snap, you’re no longer a rabbit full of energy, you’re now a dead hare, left to slowly be strangled in the humans traps. Have you not noticed? Society sets these traps everywhere. If you so much as step a toe out of line wrong, you will be snatched and nothing more than an object for mutilation. To avoid Society and his dangerous intentions you must never walk through the woods alone.                  Morbid? Perhaps. But look at Time. Since the beginning of herself she has done nothing but be herself. She’s left the World to care for himself and what has she gotten in return? Besmirched, slandered, stigmatized, vilified, disparaged; you chose the synonym for defamed and that’s been what Time got. Doesn’t seem too fair. When did this all start? Some might blame the greatest defamation on Eve, eating the apple did more than pull humankind down, it caused Time to fall as well, maybe then she decided that humans weren’t worth worrying over. Others will say that the only one to blame is ourselves, Time has no control of whom she hurts and helps, she’s just doing what she’s told, we determine our own sorrows and struggles.                2019, you will never grow old. Your life has been given an expiration date, and trust me, I understand that very well. I understand the fear that paralyzes you; how your mind draws blank, your joints turn to stone, your hair grays with the weight of the world now resting on your shoulders. The pangs of pain that now reside in your body, not because of physical pain but because you’re dying before you’ve even lived. This expiration date no longer causes a haste in life, but instead a stop on living. You’re no longer a dynamic character in your own story, you’re set in stone, you’re static. Go ahead and call yourself milk because you’ll be thrown out when the clock strikes twelve. So, little boy made of static & stone, what are you going to do? We’ve been thrown into the same boat, set to sail on a sea of mutually assured destruction, raging rampantly with high winds & higher waves, complete madness. Do we call for the life preserves to be thrown our way? Or do we shut our mouths, kick off our shoes and learn how to swim? Don’t fear. Just because you are short lived does not mean you are unimportant. It’s not about how long you’re here, it’s about how you cause people to change and grow. You aren’t Time, you won’t be around forever but you will go down in history. You have the ability to go down in history, to be remember positively by all around you. You choose how those perceive you. Time will be gentle with you, she will give you a piece of her, the chance to create your own destiny.                2019, Time, please be gentle on me. Both of you are so unpredictable, uncertain, that I cannot rely that I will have enough of you. Please, let me heal. Let me get better physically, let me overcome the sickness that I’m facing. Let me get better mentally, let me heal from the pain and the sadness. Allow me to become more than broken, give me what I need to look at myself and no longer see that the only fit adjective to describe me. Those around me say I am not broken, that I will heal if I try harder, but if the afflicted does not feel whole themselves, are they truly okay? If I can describe myself as broken and truly mean it, maybe it means that I’m not as good as people want me to be. I want to heal, I want to get better, I want to feel better, but it’s not an overnight fix. Getting better would not seem like such a strenuous task, but here I stand, knees wobbling, back aching, head throbbing, palms sweating. Please, let me get to were I need to be, so that like you two, I can write my own destiny, my own outcome.                                              -k.d.