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Time

There have been times in my life that have moved slowly, perhaps for good or bad. But now, nothing moves slowly. When I contemplate how little has altered for me in one year, I'm staggered. Soon, all too soon, it will have been an entire year since I have worked at Mary Kay, Inc., and yet it feels like just a couple of months. Days, weeks spin by at staggering pace. I remember something that happened to me, and I'll realize that months have passed since the event. I'll scan over my diary only to find that weeks have passed since I wrote in it, when I was sure it was only a few days ago.

The feeling grows stronger with each passing day: it is near-insurmountable now, so that I am driven to find a way to slow the passage of time. It is almost supernatural, as though I'm on a legended fairy island where I'm being cheated of my life: while five minutes of my revelry passes, it has really been five years, and my very life is slipping through my fingers like sand. I know my metaphors are extreme, but even these fall short of the passion I feel about this tragedy.

I have heard this so many times, where life rushes by faster and faster until you reach its end. There are two ways my life might end (barring the unexpected): I might find a peaceful, beautiful place where I have nothing to do but write, and when I imagine the end it seems like the sun slowly coming up and consuming me in warmth. The alternative is that I go as I am now: I watch myself changing in the mirror, wondering at time's onslaught; I watch the seasons change one into the other without my herald; days flow by and despite my struggles I don't do as I intend, and soon it's all gone, and I'm left with nothing in my hands at the end.

Anyway, I can think of no way to solve this problem, but to recognize it, to detail it as well as I can, and to lament it seems like the best thing to do now. I have found repeatedly that identifying a problem and my feelings about it is almost in itself a solution.

It may not be enough now. I would willingly change anything to make this whirlwind stop, but right now I don't know what to make different. While I haven't yet succeeded, I have come close to perfecting our home, to bettering my appearance, and my demeanor, to using my time as wisely as I can, the last of which is far from ideal.

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