there was a time...

Time always fascinated me as a young writer...actually as a young person in general. The simplicity of how the second you do something, you can never repeat it in exactly the same way again, absolutely wound my head up. I wrote many a melancholic poem about the passage of time. The inability to go back. I was like an 80 year old reminiscing constantly, but actually living through it.

Now as I sit here on my first official professional summer break, I am wasting copious amounts of time. Although at this point in my life it doesn't feel like 'wasting' time, it feels like I'm enjoying it...because I now know how rare it can be. I'm actually doing a novel study over the summer with a small group of kids. I foolishly picked a book out for them without reading it first, and here I am faced with teaching my old childhood conundrum, understanding time.

My favourite bit from the book so far:

'All of a sudden, I realised that every single minute I've been on this planet since I was born has been just that.'
'What?'
'Time.'
'So?' I said. 'No call to go peculiar, is it?'
'But don't you see? Time isn't anything real. It's only time. So suddenly I saw that all the time that's still to come won't be real either.'

I think the reason I like this so much is because the attitude scares me. And of course because I relate to it. And it reminds me that in September I will have another group of kids to mentor and any one of them could be having thoughts like this. Probably will be having thoughts like this. And it is giving me nightmares.

I don't know if it is because I'm living in London. Where three doors away from me yet another teenager was stabbed to death...for no reason. Where I feel like I have to somehow use everything being shown in the British media to help them grow above that stereotype.

Or if the fear is just that of a new teacher.

Or of someone with too much time to sit around thinking and over thinking.

Or, is it the painkillers I am on after falling down a flight of stairs and severely bruising my tailbone?

Oh....the cliche I could end with here...