So Where HAS the Time Gone?

Last night, when I took my son to Scouts just before 8pm, I noticed it was properly dark on the way there and not just on the way back home. That was when I realised that we have reached the Autumn Equinox, the starting point of the Dark Half Of The Year and a moment which, in previous years, was known to fill me with a kind of dread. I have always been a summer-lover and would feel increasingly miserable as autumn deepened and winter set in.  I had no time to enjoy autumn because all that meant to me was that winter was on its way.  I would dread the hours of darkness, the cold and the damp, and my mood would deepen as the days darkened. I would almost count the days until the solstice when the days would start to lengthen. I would focus on Christmas as a little ray of light in the gloom and would then reach New Year and find there was nothing between me and depression until the flowers started to appear in spring. I would want to hibernate, to snuggle in one long duvet day until I could consider winter to be over. This year has been different, starting with a beautiful crisp winter which made me feel ready to wake up, followed by a soggy spring and another disappointing summer so, for a change, I am actually happy to welcome autumn into my life. Things outside are changing. The air is cooler but it is also fresh and inviting. The trees are starting to look interesting again. There are blackberries - and that means crumble!

The end of the summer is a traditional time for hearing various cries of "Where did the summer go?", "How can it be autumn already?" and "The years are just going too fast these days". A new school year is perfect for the realisation that our children are growing up, as tiny ones start all dressed up in "Big School" uniforms and our older children move on to bigger schools with greater workloads and responsibilities. It is natural, in these conditions, to remark on the progress that everyone is making. The phrase "where HAS the time gone?" echoes around towns and villages all around, as we all stop and wonder how we hadn't noticed its passage. How can a six week holiday have passed in just the blink of an eye? How can we have already reached the end of the THIRD week of term? The leather hasn't yet been scraped off my younger son's shoes, surely we aren't that far into the term yet!

What we forget, or simply don't acknowledge, is that time isn't going anywhere except into the past. It is in no hurry, it maintains a regular pace and it is we, with our busy lives and preoccupations, who ignore it as it passes - and then we look up in puzzlement when we realise that we didn't pay attention. If we don't pin time down into memories as it goes by then it is gone forever. I don't want to spend too much more time wondering about it as it is still going. It will not stop to let me think, it will carry on regardless, taking us into the future whether we are ready or not.

Some people spend their children's younger years waiting for the next milestone; the first tooth, the first step, the first word, the first day at school. Others seem to spend a lot of time wailing at how fast the time is going and how their babies aren't babies any more (as they pack them off to Middle School with a hastily brushed-off kiss). I have realised now that both approaches are somewhat misguided - for every moment we waste remembering with fondness the cute little gurgles of our little ones, we are missing some amazing moments in their middle childhood. Some of my eight-year-old's moments are far too good to miss, as he discovers something that he hadn't known before or learns to articulate a thought that we had maybe assumed was beyond him. Let's not miss any stage of their development, simply because an eighth adult tooth doesn't seem as exciting as the first tooth to appear. Every day has something new to be learnt. Enjoy every day, because it is the only chance you will ever have to experience that day.

I am as guilty as anyone of spending too much of my time thinking about the past or the future. I am just coming to realise that I have arrived in my forties without paying enough attention to the days that passed by on the way. No more! It is autumn and I am going to enjoy it for a change. I'll take out the camera again and see what I can find and I'll appreciate my boots and my jumpers as the weather cools down and I start to need those extra layers. I'll enjoy that peculiarly earthy smell of a misty autumn morning and the colours of the leaves as they dance and then drop. I will accept that Christmas is coming up - still in the future so I will not pay it too much attention as yet, but on its way so I will not rebel as it appears closer and closer. I will enjoy autumn and then winter with a much happier heart than before. If I spend the time hating it, the seasons still won't pass any faster, they'll just go by more painfully. Eventually it will be spring again and we will re-enter the light half of the year. I hope that, by then, I won't have lost another six months to busyness and routine, wondering "Where did the time go?" and "How can it be spring already?"