In the future
sometime between now and then
I will wonder—maybe—whatever happened to the time
I spent as a couch potato—watching TV shows I had taped
during the previous week.

Will I wonder if maybe I could have used the time differently—perhaps come up with a cure for cancer or the common cold?

Will I wonder what could have happened had I applied myself differently—put the time I didn’t do much of anything into a time capsule—so that I could dig it up when I need it more—like when my time runs out or there is not much of it left.

You know, there never seems to be enough time to do everything I thought I wanted to do. In the end it won’t be any different than it is right now—I will wish that I had done something different with my time—I don’t know what for sure, but something other than what I did.

Cause it always seems I don’t get done what I later wish that I would have—whatever it was that I didn’t do.

It’s like an epidemic—it’s all over me—wondering where  the time went even before it slowly slips away—washes under the bed—out the door—down the drain.

Time is like lost love—there can really never be enough of it—so we have to settle with what we get.

What we can imagine about time—what we could do if we had just a little more of it—is always more exciting than what we actually do with what time we get. There is always this tension between our dreams and what we do with our lives in the real world—as if one thought drives the other or vice-versa—only I don’t know which one is in the lead today.

The sum of our lives will always be more than what we thought—when we had that thought—and less than what it could have been, had we done everything we ever imagined.

There will always be an imbalance in the teeter-totter of our lives—one side up while the other side hits the ground only to be pushed up until an imbalance occurs again and tries to correct itself. We push until our legs are tired and then we take a short breath and run to the swing set or the slide.

It’s a day in the park—this thought life of mine—once lived and now remembered—take a picture and tape it into a scrapbook—someone will see it one day and smile—remembering their own days on the playground.