When I was in High School I always asked questions that tried to answer the why of things.  I also had what is probably a universal experience of thinking that I was the only being in the universe who was exactly like me - and I was quite unique.  I have had trouble expressing this special quality that I thought I alone possessed and soon learned not to speak of it.  But I did write about it and I recently saw the paper on which I wrote about my sensing the passage of time while time was passing me by. I also came to realize that there was nothing really special about me.

I remember some of what I wrote. It began: “I am eating up my years…” I listed ten, fifteen and the realization that I could count my life in decades and I was aware that I should be thinking seriously about how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. Wartime intervened and choices were taken out of my hands and time moved on. Control over one’s destiny seemed to be an impossible dream.

Recently I thought of this piece of writing and insight and thought that at this stage of my life, time has slipped passed me while I was unaware that it had done this. I regret my lack of interest beyond that first expression on paper.

Even as a youngster I thought in terms of questions and answers in subjects that I had not yet taken in secondary school and would not really touch in the courses plotted for me in undergraduate school and on to masters and doctorate programs.  My questions about why I am here and where I am going and am I really the master of my fate and in control of the direction of my future were not dealt with in my courses as a scholar.  I had no connection with people who could discuss with me these portentous questions and posit possible answers that would settle a restless mind. I had no sitzfleisch for coffee house debates and arguments.

I have concluded that I have eaten up my years and it just happened and much too fast without my ever having done the things that I could have, should have or might have done.  The years have passed and passed me by.  As you get to my age and you look back, you too might think of this problem that I dealt with by just saying; I am eating up my years.  I know I have eaten up my years and I can count up the decades and hopefully become an octogenarian and then, if I am very, very lucky become a nonagenarian. My sweet mother-in-law made it to 100 and my own mother surpassed by father by twenty years to reach 85.  Her last ten years were passed not knowing who she was and I would not ask for a decline that included no room for me to pass on my thoughts about ideas, issues and my reflections on the times. When you think about it, time passes without noticing us noticing it. Time passes while it passes us by.  But that is probably the reality and order of things.