Like the White Rabbit’s frantic chant—“I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!”—I hurry myself forward. When did it start, I wonder? A pocket watch stretches to the tip of my nose, the numbers blurring as I strain to see. I’m so this that to be anything else feels like losing the thread of who I am. They tell me I’m trying to escape myself, the shadow chained to my ankle, dragging behind me with every step. My breath grows shallow, and my face sags, worn and weary, like a bag too heavy for its handles.
But am I really wrestling with myself? Or is it with all the things I am not—my can’ts, my missed opportunities, the time I let slip away? The weight of it presses down, crushing the discarded fragments of me like a car in a compactor, squeezing until I feel like a dying star, collapsing under its own gravity.
And then I sit. I pause. For the first time, my thoughts feel weightless. A small truth surfaces: fear is an illusion. So is the frantic hunger to escape this moment.
For a fleeting second, a light flickers—the reminder that I can do incredibly hard things. But it dims as quickly as it came, sinking into the depths of doubt. I wander there, lost, moving like a shadow through narrow, winding passages. I feel hollow like I’ve disappeared into myself.
Then comes amnesia. I forget. And when I remember, it’s fear that greets me first—fear of failure and time slipping through my hands. How can fear be an illusion when it feels so real?
And then, I break. Not in defeat, but in surrender. I gather myself, rallying my spirit with a call to arms, a cry that feels pulled straight from Rudy. Somewhere inside, a voice reminds me: that life is breathtakingly short. The conveyor belt of time moves steadily forward, no matter how much I wish it would pause.
What I can change is me—the discipline I bring to my days, and the care I take to move toward my dreams. So that, when the ticking finally stops, and I look back at the sum of it all, I’ll nod with quiet pride and say, “Pass. You pass.”
Lots of love to you.
Love,
Jaclynn
Going On 40 