The testimonies of time

Are there things that you do or avoid doing to alter the feeling or truth of time in your own mind? Hm - that didn't make much sense. I was just thinking about this the other day. For instance: unpacking. Whenever i go on a business trip or a vacation, as soon as i arrive, i unpack my bags into drawers and closets and "get settled" in. Landon got home last wednesday from Colorado with all of my bags. I didn't unpack them until yesterday (i have such a gracious husband). I am this way whenever i get home from a trip - i just leave my things in my bags - use landon's toothbrush and deodorant for a few days until he catches on... i'm not sure why i do this, but i'm starting to realize that it is because of time. especially when i am back from vacation, i just don't want to "get settled" back into the realities and responsibilities of my life. so i prolong the final process of returning.

there are certain testimonies of time that i like. like...buying more dish soap. this is satisfying to me. weird? (i can't believe i'm even sharing all of this - makes me sound like such a crazy person) i like that we've been washing dishes by hand for 3 years of our life - makes me feel good about water conservation, and about doing things the old way. i like the old way. like soup - people have been doing this way for ages and ages all around the world (i guess not with dish soap though, huh?). and i like that we've lived somewhere long enough. even more than that, i'm about to buy what i think will be my 5th bottle of dish soap since our move to illinois, and what i think will be my last bottle before our move this summer - and that is hugely satisfying.


but some testimonies are sober. this is strange, again, but i so distinctly remember the time passing once i was married. i specifically remember standing in the shower and realizing that my wedding pedicure was grown out and needed to be removed - and the sad feeling i got from this - knowing that my wedding was over - my only wedding of my entire life that i had always wondered about and that i waited for and enjoyed so so so much was now a day in my past and not my future. and though i was relieved and elated to FINALLY be married to the beautiful and amazing Mr. McBrayer i also was a bit sad that my wedding would now only always be a memory. dang chipped and out-grown pedicure.

what else? wrinkles. that's right. i'm getting wrinkles now. i was talking to my little sister about skin care the other day and i no longer care about what causes or prevents break-outs, it's all about the wrinkles! and i think i've just entered the anti-wrinkle worrying world in the last 3 months with this dry weather or something...but it's scary (yet sort of satisfying).

these tiny testimonies of time provoke such emotion in me. i had never noticed it until two very different emotions collided yesterday - unpacking my bags and putting dish soap on the grocery list in the same afternoon.

do you have any distinct testimonies of time? i bet watching your babies grow is a miraculous, satisfying, and bitter-sweet observance of time.

oh, and Landon turns 27 on monday. that sounds old. i guess because i met him when he was 20, and i'm only a year younger than him. so the older he gets, the older that means that i am getting.

Gather ye rosebuds while you may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today;
To-morrow will be dying.