Time flies when you're...

The past week my ever-reflecting brain has reacquainted me with time. Not as a scholar would expound on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, but more in a time line of events way.

We have coined phrases describing this mental reflection. “Would you look at the time...”, “I had a good time...”, “Was it that long ago?” and the ever-popular “Time flies when you’re having fun, making love, etc.” The list is growing as fast as the populous. Whenever there is passage of time, whether a microsecond or a century, we let the stream of our ongoing conscious lives place the time period we are gauging in a type of “sleep-mode”.

The Easter holiday season has always been a family holiday…Sunrise service, egg hunt, brunch, kick back on the sofa to nap off brunch, be awakened to the aroma of baked ham glazed in honey, and, of course, Easter break…before we became P.C. and called it “Spring Break”.

The memories of past play well during the Easter holidays. Having to dress up as the Easter bunny. Afternoons at my paternal grandparent’s house on the southwest side of Detroit (complete with Whitey the B-S-er and “Drunkle” Dwight), having to take my cat Ozone to the vet emergency because it ate an Easter Lilly (they are poisonous when ingested).

The most memories of Easter holidays were of my mom. She was always making it special for us kids, continuing to make it special as we grew up. Ironically, this past Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009, was the 15th anniversary of her passing. Caught myself saying, “Was it that long ago?” Mom was a bona fide chocoholic. She introduced me to Dove chocolate eggs, especially the truffle chocolate eggs, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Easter Sunday I went and bought a bag and ate the whole thing in her memory.

Her funeral was on April 15, rather appropriate for someone who worked in the financial sector. My dad, sister and I were almost killed in the procession to the cemetery when a Buick ran a light and came within inches of crashing into the side of our limo. It definitely broke the tension for the rest of the ride. All of us laughed about it, thinking what if he hit us? Would we have to cancel the interment at the cemetery if we wound up in the hospital? Would we make Channel 7 Action News at 6? Was this some sick joke that mom was playing on us from the “other side”?

However, more than just family memories reminded me of the space and time continuum. Life events that took place had me hitting my mental “Way Back Machine” in reflection lately (Yeah, I used to watch “Peabody & Sherman” cartoons as a kid…). Phil Spector’s legal drama finally ended earlier today with a guilty verdict earlier today for second-degree murder. The whole thing started 6 years ago. How time flies…

Then, at about the same time as the Spector verdict, the sad news of Mark “The Bird” Fidrych being found dead at his Massachusetts farm pinned under his truck hit the wire. In 1975 the Detroit Tigers sucked. But the beginnings to a much better team lay in the young Alan Trammel and Lou Whittaker. And then, in 1976, there was “The Bird”. He would talk to the ball. He would “groom” the mound with his hand to get rid of cleat marks. He would become the 1976 MLB Rookie of the Year and the #1 attraction at ballparks league-wide. I still have the baseball with his actual autograph on it… signed it right in front of me at Tiger Stadium. I talked to it tonight in his memory.

As we get older, more of these moments of time reflectivity occur, and not necessarily during holiday times. April 4th… June 22nd… July 17th… August 13th, 16th and 20th. Plus many others. It’s how we handle the residue of emotion from these reflections. Do we look at the good memories associated with them? Or do we spiral into a funk, go ballistic, or get so drunk we actually go to a Karaoke bar and heckle the singers? Whoops…just had a reflective moment…

When I hit 40, I first thought that my life as I knew it would be over. Arthritis would start creeping in, I would get slower in physical and mental ability, and would have to embarrassingly ask my doctor for a prescription for some E.D. drug. But then I realized it was how I was looking at this benchmark of time. I was looking at it as an old ending instead of a new beginning. And guess what? At the half-century mark I have no arthritis, I still am sharp mentally, and need no artificial stimulants in the bedroom. The slower body? Well, a little. But what I lack in “RPM” I make up in “driving skill”.

There are two ways to view a life event…either negatively or positively. We have tow ways of viewing these; as an ending or a beginning. Unfortunately, society views many life events as endings. The two “Ds” come to mind here…divorce and death. Divorce is draining to begin with emotionally, losing trust, joy and love in your marital partner. Death? Well, there’s not much you can do with that one. After all, it is quite the major ending, and unfortunately we human beings have a mortality rate of 100%.

Sometimes life events seem like a downward spiral in of themselves. Events that can put you over the edge, drive you crazy, hurt like hell, make you worry to the point of panic and make you want to sleep your life away. Going through a rough divorce. Dealing with financial loss. Dealing with a major injury accident. I have been through all three twice. The first time with each, I dealt with them as endings, and they effected my life negatively.

But I learned well. Dealing with each of these three major changes in my life the second time, I went in wiser from the previous times. Instead of looking at them as “endings”, I viewed them as “new beginnings”… new beginnings of good things to come. And so far, it has proved to be effective in maintaining a healthy and happy life. Not so much focused on the “quantity”, but the “quality” of life I live.

So I guess that the thought process does take the scholarly path with Einstein. It’s all about relativity. You tend to find in the grand scheme of things that time and age are both relative…it’s all mental attitude. Time moves as fast or as slow as our lives allow it to, and age is all in how you view yourself.

Now that I’ve figured this out, time moves so much slower now, allowing me to thoroughly enjoy it... family, friends, children, true love. And that’s what truly keeps you young… emotionally, intellectually, spiritually... and physically.