Essay assignment "This I believe"

This was my English assignment, which the teacher has asked to use as an example for future classes :)

23 May 2015

I Believe in Time

I believe in time.  Time comes and goes without our ability to stop it, pause it, or start it.  Time just is.  Sometimes, time can feel like it is going too slow and sometimes too fast.  No matter what, time is always there and we cannot do anything about it.

            I see time as my little babies change into little boys and then into little men.  I can see it when I look into the boys’ faces.  No, not when I am literally looking right at them, but when I look at school pictures from last year or, heaven forbid, their first day of school!  Their innocent and chubby baby faces change into faces with Jack-o-lantern smiles and then faces that are spotted with acne.  I can also see it in my boys’ clothes.  Somehow, the jeans that were worn yesterday look like high waters today, and the shirt which was once too long now shows the belly button when they reach for my hidden candy.

I touch time when I am holding the preschool toys that were once favorites, but are now collecting dust.  I debate with myself: do I keep them or not?  My memories run wild while I hold the little pilot that is now not only missing a leg, but the painted red and white striped shirt has been rubbed off in some places and he has dirt in crevices that I could never hope to get out.  I recall stumbling, more asleep than awake, down hallways late at night to comfort a crying child, only to be rudely snapped into consciousness by the stabbing prick of a lost toy against my bare foot, remarkably placed in the center of the walkway.  I decide these toys need a new home.

            I smell time when both my teenage sons walk by me after playing football in the backyard all afternoon together.  The once sweet smell of lavender, which lingers long after an evening bath or morning rubs of lotion, is gone.  It has been replaced with a startlingly awful smell.  The kind of smell that makes me plug my nose, and turn the other way just to breathe.

            I taste time when my children, who liked lettuce last week, refuse to eat it this week and declare at the top of their lungs that “lettuce is poison!”  The dinner table can be quite the eventful place.  We experience the great reward of everyone loving the carefully prepared meal, only to have our elated state crash to the earth, when a month later the same meal turns into yelling, crying, and a test to see who can be deemed the most stubborn - mom or child?

            I hear time in the sounds that echo through the wind.  There are noises from a nearby playground as children squeal with delight while they accelerate on a swing.  I hear time in the deepening of my oldest son’s voice.  What once were loud shrill noises have suddenly, seemingly over night, changed into odd sounds, which crack and squeak as his larynx alters between the low and high pitches.  These sounds tell me that time has passed and my boy is almost a man.

            Yes, I believe in time. Unstoppable time.  As time passes it leaves me with a feeling of nostalgia, part of me longing for the past and yet part of me not missing it at all.  How can I want both?  I miss my little babies, their innocence and complete trust in their parents.  I miss holding my sleeping sons in my arms at night with their fresh clean smell, wrapped in a warm blanket, and a contagiously calm look on their faces.   However, I do not miss all those sleepless nights with endless crying, the endless questions of a two-year-old, or the inability to find just one quiet moment alone, even in the bathroom.  But in the end, each year I am given only 31,536,000 seconds of time, no matter how fast or slowly they go.