It was sitting on top of the monkey bars in fourth grade with a childhood friend watching as the sun set over the playground. The metal began cooling down and we shifted, sore from sitting on the bars so long. We sat face to face and it was all so familiar. The playground with the woodchips that we could turn into molten lava and the slides that we insisted on going up not down in.

“I don’t want to go to college.”

“Why?”

“Because it means we’re growing up.”

 

It was middle school and racing out of the doors on a half day. We ran to get ice cream at Baskin Robbins with the smell of milk enveloping us as the door swung shut, sealing in the air conditioning and our excitement at no school. Chocolate Chip and Mint, Cookie Dough, Superman, what would we get? We buzzed up and down the rows and finally decided on options that we had always gotten, no one ever really tried anything new. As we sat there on the sidewalk outside of the park in a little circle, I looked around at all of them and wondered what it would be like when we moved on and there were no more half days.

 

It was high school sitting in a coffee house across from a friend that I had always known but never really gotten to know. I was nervous and wondered what we could possibly talk about. What if we had nothing to say to each other? We had to at least sit there until we could reasonably fake empty cups. But as we threw our coats into the corner of the booth and settled into the cushions I decided not to plan it out and suddenly, there was nothing to worry about at all. There were so many things that we had missed out on and so many things we had in common. In the rush to run through the circus that was high school and the hoops of our classes, we had almost become strangers in the face of the curtain coming down as the applause drowned out our smiles.

“Isn’t it crazy how fast time has gone?”

“People always say high school flies by.”

We sat, hands around our teas, thinking about that as we listened to the minutes tick by.

 

It was high school graduation and old family friends saying “Congratulations, Honey! You’re all grown up!”

I smiled and didn’t let myself feel sad that all these people eating sushi and sandwiches at my party would soon leave and spread out, bursting the bubble of childhood. I watched the slideshow that my dad had put together for me, with pictures from the day that I was born all the way up to a shot of me crossing the stage at graduation. I looked at the faces around me and they seemed so sad and so proud all at the same time that I could only swallow hard and pick at the food on my plate.

The night before, my dad had finished the slideshow in the early hours of the morning, and as it ended, we continued to stare at the blank screen.

 

“You think high school passes fast? College is ten times quicker!” We grew up together and today she is telling me about her first job. We drove along the back roads of Ann Arbor, not caring where we went; going anywhere we didn’t know.  We drove until the sun dropped behind the fields and she turned the headlights on and our ice cream had melted into our cups. We looked at the trees on both sides of the street, leaning towards us, welcoming us home, saying goodbye.

 

It is sophomore year of college and meeting old friends that I should take the time to see more. It is trying to balance my old and new life together, making time for everyone, making time for myself as I get caught up in the wind of the Business School.

Most days I run through the hours like a demon’s on my heels, not even stopping to think or even breathe in everything that’s going on around me. Go to that appointment, be at the next recruiting event, meet your friends for lunch and talk about the same things every time.

 

But wait. Stop.

Look at the diag, see the beauty of the crisscrossing paths and the shadows of trees rippling across the grass. Did you notice the American Flag waving you to slow down? Do you walk with your head down, seeing the pavement and nothing else?

 

We walk from her apartment to mine and I say to the most loyal friend I’ve ever had “Did you ever think how, if we just stopped to look, this campus is actually very beautiful?”

“Yeah! You’re right!” She lifts her head to look around and surprise is in her voice. We both walk slower as we look at the fall colors spreading through the scene around us.

 

It is going home for dinner with my parents and having a chill breeze whipping up a storm with the wind driving down sheets of rain.

Suddenly I jump up from the dinner table and say, “I forgot to close the moon roof on my car!!”

My parents laugh uncontrollably as I snatch the closest umbrella and run out into the pouring rain, jump in to see my soaked seats, and wish that in times of urgency, my moon roof would close quicker.

 

It is my parents saying that they’ll move to wherever I find a job so that we can still have dinner together. I laugh and pretend to be embarrassed but I can’t help thinking, what if it were always just like this?

If I could stay in this moment, the best time of our lives, as everyone tells us, wouldn’t that be great? But if I always live like this, I will always want to stay immobile in time. If I run through life I’ll always want more, always wanting to recover the time that I lost.

 

What if I started looking now?

 

It is taking a break from running place to place, hitting the next item on a checklist that leads to success. Can I stop to look at the campus around me as I walk through it everyday? Why don’t I set aside enough time for meals with friends? We have a good time when people aren’t rushed. We talk about things that matter to us, get to know each other better.

 

What’s so important about the future that the present is skipped over? How can I expect to enjoy the future when the future will someday be the present and I find that I am just chasing a mirage? Twenty years into 2032, when I’m too old to grab back the time I lost, what will I say to the me right now?

And lifting up the blinders around my eyes for the first time, I can see it all happening as the future says in hindsight, “What are you doing?”

“I’m running late again, got to catch that next appointment, to figure out where my next opportunity is.”

“Did you finish lunch with your friend?”

“Yeah sort of, I had to end it early, but it’s okay, we’ll just finish it some other day.”

“What did you guys talk about?”

“We—we, oh you know, just—just stuff about…school.” I try to remember hastily, and all of sudden, I can’t remember anything at all.

As the silence stretches out, I try busy indifference, “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve made an obligation and I have a responsibility to be there. There are more important things that I need to do to figure out where I’m going to go, what I’m going to be.”

I try to step around but she calls out and I find myself slowing down, “I am where you’re going and who you’re going to be. And you don’t have any obligations or responsibilities more important than turning around and telling the others who are running through their lives to slow down. You can’t even remember what you talked about with a friend who has been there for you for 10 years. Do you really think that you can blame your running on your responsibilities? You made them. Make them differently so you actually get something out of each one.”

I process this as I slowly turn around and see an out of breath me running up with no intention of stopping. Stepping into my path I say, “What am I doing?”

 

It is sophomore year of college and the fall is oh so very beautiful. My roommate and I went to the Arboretum just minutes away from where we live and just spent time looking and taking pictures. The sun came out and the weather adjusted its temperature so that it seemed the day was made for capturing memories.

The gravel crunched under our boots as we spun in circles taking panoramic shots on our phones. The sunlight filtered through the trees and splotched itself across our clothes as we raced across the field to climb a tree. We sucked the chill air into our lungs and soaked up the last rays of sunshine before the winter season. People were taking walks all around us, briskly and with purpose. We ran around leisurely and without purpose.

We sat on the fence at the top of the hill and looked out across Ann Arbor in the sleepiness of fall. We promised to come back in the winter and see a new type of scenery, a different type of scenery. Beautiful in its own way with the snow lazing about on branches, in fear of turning over in its sleep and slouching to the ground. There would be no leaves for the sunlight to filter through but it would bounce off all the icicles and fragment into a million rays. I heard that even at midnight the snow is lit by a moonlight that is almost as bright as day. There’s also a tradition I should try out. Something about trays from a cafeteria and sledding down moonlit hills. But shhh, don’t give it away.

 

It was my friend and I driving along the back roads of Ann Arbor listening to “Drops of Jupiter” by Train and hearing the line “Deep fried chicken!”

We did a double take and then burst out laughing at the unexpectedness of it, but then, that’s what time is all about. We drove on roads we had never heard of and we didn’t worry about all the things we had to pack into suitcases. We didn’t dwell on the morning when we would both be in different states and when we would no longer be able to walk two houses down and ring each other’s doorbells. Because the trees on both sides of the road were creating a tower above our heads and this moment in time would be remembered forever.

As we took that old Ford Focus for one last trip, we remembered rolling down the windows in the winter to look both ways because we hadn’t scraped off the frost properly. We remembered screeching to a halt on the side of the road because she had spied a spider dangling right in front of her eyes. I laughed and leaned back in the seat, looking at Ann Arbor around us, changing, but us changing with it and not getting caught up in the change.

I was enjoying the pavement streaking by under the tires of the car and us talking rapidly and excitedly about all the important, trivial details of our day.

 

It was my graduation party and all the people who came and said “Congratulations, Honey! You’re all grown up!” Because they came and I was happy to see them and it seemed like I couldn’t give out enough hugs.

We had too much sushi and sandwiches, talked too much, and didn’t think about where we would be in a couple months. We laughed at trying to unfreeze the ice that had turned into one huge chunk and noticed how great everybody looked, sitting there, laughing and joking around. My parents proudly showed off the slideshow they had made of me, with a lot of good pictures and a lot of embarrassing ones too. As I saw myself grow up on the screen in front of me and took in the smiles around the table, I felt so lucky to have grown up with all of these people around me.

The night before my dad had just finished the slideshow in the early hours of the morning, and I didn’t know what to say as we both yawned sleepily.

“Go to bed.”

And, as I crawled into the comforting softness of my bed in a room I hadn’t changed since elementary school, the smile on my dad’s face as we watched the slideshow together faded into just a feeling. Falling asleep, I could still hear him shifting around in his office, tweaking the slideshow, making it perfect.

 

It was high school and we sat in that coffee shop getting to really know each other for the first time. I was worried we wouldn’t have anything to talk about but then I told myself not to think about it, and we talked for hours and hours, about things we were scared of, things we were proud of, things we weren’t sure about.

A few weeks later, after our school’s graduation party that locked us in until 6 in the morning, we went back to the elementary school playground just a few steps away from her house. Sneaking back inside to grab some graham crackers, we tiptoed around and tried to be discrete before rushing back to our five-year-old kingdom. The morning chill was settling in and as I shrugged my hands into the sleeves of my sweater, I remembered the last time I had been over, how we had climbed onto the roof of the elementary school, and how terrified I’d been that I would get stuck up there.

Climbing to the top of the play structure that had seemed so big only a few years ago, we leaned against the walls and waited. Waited for the new morning, for our new lives in college, waited without regretting.

 We munched on crackers and watched as the sun rose above the treetops. Both of us were bleary-eyed from lack of sleep but excited to be there and see a sunrise in our own backyards for the first time ever.

She became one of my best friends and it all started with cups that were emptying too quickly when we found ourselves sipping slower and slower at an attempt to make the clock go backwards. Sometimes all I need to do is stop and take a break. I don’t need to be the next super star with the best grades and the best job lined up. All I need is the here and now with the people who matter.

In college, we would once again stay up until 6 in the morning, but this time we were exhausted from partying, too comfortably wrapped up in blankets to actually go to bed, so instead, we talked for hours and hours and hours.

“Can you believe we’ll be upperclassmen next year?”

“Yeah, it’s crazy.”

We smiled as we faced the circus together, joining hands for a bow, and nodding off while we lost ourselves in what a great time it had been.

 

It was middle school and we rushed out on a half-day like it was the best thing that ever happened. We hit the ice cream store and the most important decision was what ice cream we were going to get and boy was that a tough decision.  We strolled to the park, taking our own sweet time like that day would never end. As the ice cream melted into our cones and as we struggled to eat it faster than it melted, no one thought about what it would be like once the ice cream was gone. Because it was good in the moment and that was all that mattered. We gazed dismayed at the chocolate smeared over our coats, shivered in the cold breeze, then shrugged it off and sat there laughing at each other.

 

It was elementary school and we sat on top of the monkey bars after a day of camp. She couldn’t understand why I was worried about going to college already and I couldn’t describe why it was so important to me.

She shifted her position on the bars to face me and said “But it’s so far away!”

 

And it is.

 

It always has been.

 

How much of my time do I waste worrying about not having enough time? How many moments went by without full potential because I was thinking about them ending?

The day is beautiful, the here and now is amazing. We reflect by understanding the past but we live by looking at the future. I want to be able to look back and really remember. Remember the friends who walked through the diag with me, who strolled through sunlight, coffee chats, and car rides with me. I want to see my family in my mind’s eye, how they always cook the best food when I say I’m coming home. I want to see my actions, here, now, forever.

The me from the past walks up and I say, “What are you doing?”

And she says, “Man have I got a story for you! The other day I had lunch together with some friends and we talked about…”

I smile as I listen and appreciate—and remember.