I Can't Stop Time

I used to think writing was a sort of superpower since it felt like stopping time. I remember exactly when I found the love for books and for writing.

Mom used to take my brother and me to the library on the weekends when we were kids. She was a single mom in college at the time and needed to find time to study while looking after us.

I used to run through the automatic doors at the Metropolitan on a mission with a wide grin. I had a lot of favorite books, but I used to be a big fan of the Junie B. Jones books by Barbara Park. There were 28 of them. I am pretty sure I read them all about three times a piece.

We used to spend hours at the library and I would leave with about five books to take home to read at a time. My grandmother used to call me Matilda.

In third grade one of the projects was to create a short story and illustrate it.

I wrote about a young girl whose father was a pirate. All I remember about it was her father was going to sail away for a long time. The girl didn't want her father to go without her so she hid under the ship's deck.

After a violent storm came through, her father found her and asked her why she came along. She said that family was supposed to stick together, no matter what.

I remember that I wrote a happy ending for that first book. I used to live in a rose-colored glass kind of world.

The first time I read Jane Austen I was 13. Howard used to give me all of the English romantics to read. One year he packaged up an old Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Hardy.

Sometimes I blame Howard for making me the incurable romantic that I am. I still want a happy ending. I still look for the goodness in the story.

Something I have learned about the difference between novels and journalism is that one is supposed to always tell the truth.

I don't think I could have appreciated the classics that I read when I was a young girl the way I do now.

Seeing something tragic changes everything. Hearing or reading about tragedy through my job on a day to day basis changes things.

I'd like to think I have become more appreciative of the small details. I have come to always say "I love you" to my mother and my family members every time we say goodbye.

Because the truth of the matter is, we don't know if that will be our last time. We don't know if tomorrow we are going to wake up.

Although that thought terrifies me sometimes, I think it will make my quality of life much more fulfilling than living in the fantasy world that I did so long ago.

So no, I can't stop time. I know that now. But I can make the most of it.

Written: 2.16.17


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