As I
watched foamy white fingers dance across the dark green waves at the beach
recently, all I could think about was time.
It’s the
one thing we all share. It’s the one thing we can’t control. And it’s the one
thing we can never get back. As orderly and predictable as time is, none of us
can predict how much we have.
Toes
pressed into the sand, I watched my children, so big and grown, play in the
surf. Memories that made me smile and made me cry flashed through my racing
mind.
I could see
myself sitting in the sand with my daughter—a toddler at the time—building sand
castles in that perfect spot on the beach, the smooth place where the waves
slowly run out and then retreat to the water. She’s 15 now.
I could see
my middle child, who didn’t like the sand much, sitting in a chair for hours
with his finger in his mouth, soaking it all in while never complaining. He’s
too big to sit in my lap now, and probably wouldn’t want to anyway.
I could see
our baby the first time we took him to the beach, when he fearlessly crawled so
far into the water waves were crashing into his face before I scooped him into
my arms. He starts his last year of elementary school in two months.
Time. My
relationship with time is stormy and complicated. I resent time because I’ve
lost so much of it to my disease. There are things I can’t remember. There are
life experiences that run together, tormenting me because I can’t remember each
precious day I’ve had with my family.
Even our
most recent trip to the beach is a blur in some ways, maybe because I was
distracted with unexpected work and spent too much time staring at this laptop.
Time is
hard for those with serious mental illness. Our days of suffering feel
interminable, our good days fleeting and few. Maybe that’s normal, but I
suspect it isn’t. My disease has caused me to miss much of life. What I would
do to have every one of those really bad days back to do over again when I’m
feeling healthy.
They say
you should live with no regrets, never looking back. I don’t know why that’s so
hard for me to do, but it is.
Mental
illness distorts one’s thinking, so I guess it only makes sense it would
distort our sense of time. We worry about the time in front of us, regret the
time behind us and fail to appreciate the time passing by at every moment.
I hope
those who read this don’t take it as whiny discontent or juvenile bitterness. I
write about mental illness to help me cope, to give others hope and to help the
“normal” among us understand what life is like inside a troubled mind.
I haven’t
written in a while, partly because I’ve had longer periods of good mental
health—but also because I’ve secretly been hoping the dragon has been slayed,
never to return. I fear speaking his name might rouse him from his slumber.
The truth
is I know the dragon is out there somewhere, still waiting for me. He might even be just beyond those green
waves.
