Instead of fast forward, time to hit pause or rewind

I’m always in a hurry.

My mother and sister used to complain about this every time we’d be at the mall together. I was always a good 20 strides ahead of them. I’d hear them talking about me behind my back, literally, cause that’s where I always left them. Behind me.

Sometimes when I’m trying to get from point A to point B and I’m stuck behind a slow moving person – or worse yet, a standing still crowd – I feel like I’m in a roller derby, but without the roller skates or the physical contact.

I’m always looking for that opening to get by someone because I feel like salami on rye.

Sandwiched in.

And I’m not just in a hurry when I’m standing up. I’m in a hurry when I’m sitting down too. At home, at the end of the day, I plunk my butt into a chair to watch a soap opera I tape daily – Days of our Lives.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m anxious to watch something else on TV, or if it’s because I’m too impatient to get through 60 minutes of programming to see how the day’s episode ends – likely it’s because I’m not really that interested in the show but taping it has become habit. Anyway, I usually watch the show in fast forward, only slowing down to view the parts I’m interested in. Rarely does it take me more than eight minutes to watch an hour-long show.

Maybe it’s because of the business I’m in.

We’re constantly under the pressure of deadlines. You haven’t even starting reading this week's issue of the newspaper and we’ve already moved on to the next one.

We’re asked to write Christmas stories in July, and before Christmas hits we’re thinking about how we’re going to fill our January and February issues. Rather then living in the moment, we’re thinking of the future.

As I’m writing this column at home last Tuesday evening – my deadline isn’t until Thursday but I’m trying to get a jump start on my next day at work – my youngest son Justin is beside me playing his Nintendo DS. I look at him and I swear he grows a little bit more each night while he’s asleep.

A short distance away a black and white portrait of him that I took when he was just three weeks old hangs on the wall. My husband is cupping this tiny infant in his hands. Imagine if we tried to do that now.

My baby uses big words that I didn’t even know he could pronounce, and a few weeks ago when I pulled a book off the shelf to read him his bedtime story he told me he wasn’t interested in a non-fiction book that night.

He’s six years old. Seems like yesterday he was six months old.

Down the hall my oldest son Jacob is in his room. I can hear him listening to his music. When I told him a couple of my coworkers had gone to an Elton John concert, he had no idea who I was talking about. Yet at 10 he’s already finished five years of school, he’s in his sixth year of hockey and in a few short years he’ll be a teenager.

Where has the time gone?

And how can I slow it down?

Because it’s one thing to be in a hurry while grocery shopping at Sobeys, it’s quite another to watch your children growing up in front of your eyes.

Life goes by too fast.