Time
Time, the one thing we can’t get enough of. A human’s most valuable currency, because unlike money you can never make back what you spend. On January 25, 2015, my friend Elliot died of leukemia. He was a few years older than I was, and while I truly didn’t know him on a personal level he helped me through a tough period in my life. Elliot was an online creator who made various comedy videos that made fun of high school tropes and societal norms. He had a very crude sense of humor, but in those over-exaggerated stories, there were trues to it. He made high school life sound like the opposite of a John Hughes film yet still as entertaining. Once I entered high school I was disappointed to find out it was like nothing he said.
Elliot was only twenty when he died, I remember in the first video I watched his character at the end said “Sometimes I wish I could imagine myself ten years from now, out of college living life without boundaries. But at the end of the day, it's just a step closer to the future. But the future tends to unfold as it should… well, at least I think it does.” But being the middle schooler I was, I didn’t truly understand what he meant. I was too young and naïve, but all kids are. And in my defense, I don’t think most 8th graders would understand such a philosophical outlook on life. It’s only natural to let everything out occasionally, even if the audience wouldn’t truly get it, though in time I did. When I found out he died I was a sophomore in high school, it was a week after his actual death. It felt odd to know someone that I spent years watching had died, and it wasn’t like I could contact him and ask how he was the only news the audience ever got was when he decided to update us on it. In the memorial video dedicated to him, his friends and family explained that the doctors could only delay the inevitable, there was nothing they could do.
In 2018 I turned twenty years old, the same age as Elliot when he died. It wasn’t until I turned twenty that I really understood how precious time is. To me, ages thirteen to nineteen felt the same. Middle school, high school, and the first year or two years of college nothing felt different. Sure, in that time I accomplished many achievements and I explored places I’d never been to. But I didn’t feel any different until after my twentieth birthday. Turing twenty I started my midlife crisis, or in more accurate terms my one-fourth life crisis. With each passing day, I grow a bit older, we all do. Every second I take comes closer to my last. Of course, those last seconds are decades away, maybe even centuries away. Who really knows? I’ve begun to think, a little bit too much about my life and whatever that future holds for me. Because I know everything I do will just be a memory that I’ll tell my kids. “When I was your age I was doing” (fill in the blank here). To quote a Don Henley song “Don’t look back, you can never look back.” This also reminds me of something my friend once told me, “Don’t romanticize the past.” I wanted to relive the past, even for just a moment. A time when I didn’t need to worry about a future career. And when you can’t remake those memories all you can do is “romanticize the past”. No one should judge you for wanting to relive a time or a place where you felt like nothing was wrong in the world, where you truly felt happiness. At least some kind of happiness.
Now I’m finally going to talk about the title of this paper, time. The concept of time scares me, sometimes I feel like whatever I do with my time whether I make good use of it or not. It won't matter, because unlike me time will always move on. Time will forget all of us and brush us off as if we didn't matter. And I'll be honest, I don't know if I'm afraid of death. I'm not afraid because what if death is a welcoming feeling? What I am afraid of is age, age happens to everyone, it's a part of life. But I'm not afraid of age in a cosmetic way, sure I'll have grey hair and wrinkles around my face. I won't be as active as I used to be. But I won’t look at that as a horrible evolution. It's funny teenagers can’t wait to grow older, maybe it’s so they can party and drink all they want without getting in trouble with their parents, maybe they’re looking for a source of freedom and all they can see is aging as that freedom.
So, I finally gave in, I’m ok with never being younger than I was an hour ago. Then again, the ever-impending hourglass that drops a grain of sand on everything now and then signifying my time left isn’t much of a comfortable feeling to think about. Now I know it isn’t healthy to think about dying, I usually don’t (sure it might not seem like that, but I assure you I don’t). What I do think about is when will it happen. Like most of us, we all want to go at the tender age of 102 of natural causes. Or at least that’s how I want to go. Yet in all honesty, we could die at any time. What if a meteor the size of Russia hits Earth, then we’ll all be dead. There isn’t anything you can do about it either, it’s not like you can tell your body “No don’t die.” A body doesn’t work like that, but I wish it did.
One day I’ll be older, much older than I am now. I’ll look back at all the time I used, either spending it on studying for my final, finishing that research paper last minute, or procrastinating my weekends away. My older family members always tell me to enjoy the moment, enjoy being young. Because one day I’ll end up like them, watching their children grow as they did. Life will begin and end trillions of times, but time will continue. Our generation will be known as the weirdest era of human history. When we had a billionaire as president, and sicko mode was played instead of sweet victory at the 2019 super bowl. Future generations will study these years in their history book. It will all be history for them, but for us, it will become old memories of when we were young adventurists. If only Elliot could see the world now, I wonder what kind of jokes he’d come up with.
As the years go by I keep wondering what life would be like if Elliot was still here. Though I never truly knew he was such a significant part of my adolescent years. And what hurts the most is he’ll never know how much he meant to me, and I’ll never have the chance to tell him so. Life goes on as all things do, be that as it may, I still wish I could go back to enjoy the finer moments. Moments like my high school graduation, moments where I didn’t have a care or worry. While I do look forward to the future, it’s only natural to have a longing for the past. I tend to dedicate many of my writings to people who had significance in my life, and this is for you Elliot. Wherever you may be I hope they’re laughing at your jokes the way I and so many others did. You were an inspiration and you helped me so much when I felt most lost. When I wanted to feel good and laugh I would go back and watch your videos, hell I still do it now.
Most of us do not think of time in an existential way, but you just sat through me rambling a bit of nonsense. I understand what I’m trying to say could be off-putting, someone of it could even have offended you. But through all my nonsense did you think about how you used your time up to this point? We always hear the phrase “You’re wasting my time” and it could come off as rude, but that phrase is also true. I’ll never get back the couple of hours I spent writing this piece. Just like how you will never get back the ten or fifteen minutes you spent reading or listening to me ramble. But it isn’t time wasted if you got something out of it. With so much to see in the world, you shouldn’t get caught up in anything that wastes your time. Sure, the girl you like rejected you and you saw her with another guy the day after, and sure the boy you wanted turned out to be not as nice of a guy as he first seemed. Don’t beat yourself up over it, you’re wasting your time thinking about them. Instead of that look for something else, something more that can fulfill your needs. And remember do it soon because your time waits for no one, not even yourself.
Nahai 2019
