The Passing of Time and Melancholy Moods

Can you believe it’s September already? I can’t and I’ve got two old people, atomic clocks in the house that shout the date out. The clocks don’t literally shout but the numbers on the clocks are two inches tall and black and you can’t miss them against their silvery white background. The only time I don’t love my atomic clocks is when we have to move the time back an hour in the fall. That has to be done manually where in the spring they can spring forward on their own with a little help from the timekeepers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. There are some 400 places around the world that keep official standards of time for different geographical areas so don’t go thinking the USA is ‘special’ because we can synchronize time in so many wall clocks, computers, cars, phones, watches, electrical grids, GPS systems and other devices where being precise matters. Gone are the days when men would walk down to the town square each day and set their pocket watches to the town’s tower clock.

And from the who really cares department did you know that time zones were invented by the railroads? From History.com “The need for continental time zones stemmed directly from the problems of moving passengers and freight over the thousands of miles of rail line that covered North America by the 1880s. Since human beings had first begun keeping track of time, they set their clocks to the local movement of the sun. Even as late as the 1880s, most towns in the U.S. had their own local time, generally based on 'high noon,' or the time when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. As railroads began to shrink the travel time between cities from days or months to mere hours, however, these local times became a scheduling nightmare. Railroad timetables in major cities listed dozens of different arrival and departure times for the same train, each linked to a different local time zone.” Also from the who really cares department, I didn’t just learn this from a trip to Googleland. My husband had some antique railroad schedules that peaked his curiosity and he dug up the history of time zones in an age before computers were a household ‘thing.’

I was thinking about the passing of time while in the car coming back from having my hearing aid get cleaned. For the second time. Since it was new in April. This time the audiologist showed me how to clean it myself and I dutifully paid attention all the while thinking she’s full of beans, that ear wax no one can see is not the issue, and eventually the aid will need to go back to the factory. But I played the game and promised to brush the living daylights out of the little money grabbing devices morning and night and to put them in the jar of drying agent overnight. The hearing aids that these new aids replaced lived through seven years without cleaning or jars of moisture sucking beads, one even almost became chewing gum for our dog and they never once quit working in all that time. When I bemoaned this fact to the audiologist she said that people's ears change as they age. I'd been patronized.

It sure takes a lot of time to be old, doesn’t it. Besides that routine added to my daily schedule I now have acquired my first pair of compression socks and you’ll never guess what they’re for so I’ll tell you. Remember the cancerous mole I have removed on my ankle back in June? It’s still not healed up and the dermatologist ordered bamboo compression stockings to increase circulation down there. And have I mentioned that I don’t like yogurt but I’m sitting here eating some ‘Brown Cow’ stuff (that isn’t so bad) because it’s got five kinds of live, active cultures in it? Apparently you need to replace the good bacteria in you digestive system after having diarrhea several days in a row. Why, oh why, can’t I go back to being forty again! I’ve even take fifty to start over again.

On the ride home Kenny Chesney was singing Knowing You and I thought I’d start crying. I know it wasn’t a song about missing your younger self but that’s the way I internalized the words. In the intro to his video he says, “Not everything is meant to last but you don’t think about that when it’s perfect.” Yup, good-bye to my life before ointments and compression socks and popping pills at breakfast. I miss you and I’m sorry I took you for granted. ©

 “God, we were so alive
I was a kid on a carnival ride
Holdin' my breath 'til the moment
When you were gonna leave me too soon
But I'd do it all over
'Cause damn, it was good knowin' you”