Time is no friend

I play soccer as often as I can. There are several things I notice about soccer lately though. I rarely ever battle for the ball - I rarely ever run flat out as fast as I can - I am concerned about injury - I don't last very long. It appears that gone are the days where I was aggressive and could anticipate, react and move with speed. Well, actually, I do anticipate in my head, but the ol' body doesn't go when I think it should anymore. For example, I see that there's a a passing lane and the dribblers running out of options..I used to anticipate the pass by moving quickly to the passing lane for an interception - now I just watch the pass happen as I envisioned it. (Don't they call that dejavu or Jedi reflexes??)

Anyhow, I am sitting here typing at 4 in the morning after my head got flooded with thoughts when I woke for a minute in the night. No more juice before bed... ;-) That's about as far from something I would do when I was younger as anything else in the world.

Yesterday, we were looking at old photos of me as a baby..."didn't they have COLOR film then" is a question that constantly pops up in my mind. But, more serious things like, I don't remember THAT at all. I mean, that is me...but, I have NO recall of that photo. Of course, some were me wearing a diaper sitting in a high chair. But, others were me sitting next to my sister. Where were we when the photo was taken? How old was I? What was I thinking then? Wow, my mom and dad look younger than I look now......Where did I get that nice shirt? Questions just started pouring out of me.

THEN I realized something else. When I was looking at photos of MY oldest daughter as a baby, I couldn't remember stuff about those either. I am not really worried about alzheimer's right now...but the discovery, er, rather rediscovery that time is no friend started pounding my face in. This linear life we lead is too much like a road trip and not enough like a picture. When you're on a road trip you pass by miles and miles of stuff...how much of it do you remember or keep a memory of? A picture is a static piece of time that you capture. It "holds" where it is. It is essentially captured, eternal.

Finally, last night during date night we were watching a movie and I was confronted with the reality that we do live life like it's a road trip. We don't think about things anymore. We busy ourselves and call it "being productive". But, I don't plan things out. I don't make purposeful decisions after really careful thought. I am not prudent, shrewd or wise. I am impulsive, a gambler and piece of chaff floating in the wind to be led where it takes me. How do I capture important things? How do I live intentionally so that when I do something - it's of value...it's memorable? I don't know.

But life moves on and memories fade. It's too bad really because I have had an awesome life to this point...or, at least I think I have - I can't remember.