In the Blink of a Minds Eye

In the blink of an eye, another year has passed. Now, all we can do is spend a moment to ponder upon what that year held. Sit back and the flood of memories begin. It is a tidal wave that overwhelms you for a minute, but as the waves of memories begin to slow you are able to get a foothold. It takes another moment to begin to make sense of what you are experiencing. Great montages of images fill your mind. Slowly you begin to dissect these images and put them together into a manageable, intelligible form.

Then a realization hits you.

Though your attempt was to reminisce upon the memories of the past year, this is not what has transpired. The collage of images that flooded your mind is a large mix of many years. It seems almost impossible to excavate the previous year from all those that preceded it. Excluding those events related to a meaningful time period all other events are so convoluted that it seems an impossible task to separate them from one another. Though most memories seem intact it is a hopeless attempt to date them.

You sit and ponder this.

A vision begins to fill your mind: You are on a large wooden ship, a ship that resembles those of days past. You imagine yourself a buccaneer, adrift upon a vast ocean. Though you are not sure where you are headed you do know this, you are very aware of where you come from. This is the one impossible fact that keeps you going. I beg you to wait a moment and reconsider this fact. Look back, turn and stare into the past. The past for you is the vast ocean that you leave in your wake. Can you separate the water you have traveled through from the water you have not? You know you have left afloat behind you countless memories, but are they recoverable? As you look upon the immensity of the ocean that lies behind you, you begin to grasp the realization that is plaguing your mind.

It is a more than an impossible task to separate the memories you leave behind.

So slowly but reluctantly you turn around and look to the sides. The view you see is spectacular. It is the stillness of the moment that makes it so overpowering. You notice that for a very brief second the scene around you stands still. This moment in time exists for but a very brief trice. And then it moves behind you. The moment passes without hesitation. It is gone before you have the chance to appreciate the abundant emotions it flings into you mind. It is replaced with another moment just as potent, but you have not completely absorbed the previous moment so you cannot assimilate this one. Just like that another and another come and pass. Only with great effort can one moment be completely realized and that is at the cost of other precious moments.

With even greater hesitation you look forward. You are overwhelmed by what lays before you. There is a boundless ocean rushing at you. It comes quicker than you have time to think. It bashes against the hull of your ship and is on the sides and behind before you have a chance to grasp what has occurred. However, there is something that makes you want to keep looking forward, something that was not there when you were looking back. It takes you but a moment to realize what it is but the word hits you hard and accurately, control. Though you could not control what was happening behind the ship, you can control where the ship goes. It might be as simple as just pointing the ship in one direction and letting it go where the ocean takes you. Nonetheless, you still seem to have control and that is the most important thing.

It is a slow process but you are able to eventually understand; there is nothing wrong with looking back to try to make sense of where you come from, but don’t lose control of where you are going.

The years pass in the blink of a minds eye. The vastness of the future and the past easily overwhelm us. The briefness of the now is frustrating. The control we have over these is exhilarating.