Time has a funny way of collapsing in on itself when viewed in hindsight. Decades compressed into little bubbles of memories. What impacts stays. Mundane, routine wiped out.
I wrote a speech to present to the student body of my local high school’s Homecoming pep assembly. Twenty-five years since my class graduated from the school, and the alumni were being honored.
“Can anyone speak about our class? Just five minutes talking about what it was like back then, and an update on where we are now?”
I read it and thought, “I’ve presented in much more formal environments for hundreds of people. I could do that.”
Fingers poised over the laptop keyboard, cursor blinking on a blank page waiting for me to write the speech, I stared. My brain swam back through two and a half decades of living, years riffling back and back and back to the before. Before I was a single mom, before I was married for 16 years, before I lived in a city and had a career, before mortgages and vacations and pandemics and world events. Before I ever tried a drug, before I was diagnosed, before I knew what it was like to pay a bill on my own. Before smart phones and social media, before streaming subscriptions and online shopping.
And I couldn’t remember.
I couldn’t remember specific things that happened. Looking back at high school I clearly remember events at home, a few specific things. But I couldn’t remember any funny stories about mishaps in class. Couldn’t remember any specific details about scores or championships.
The cursor blinked.
I would be speaking to a large group of teenagers. What could resonate for them hearing about the difference in the distance between my senior year in 2002 and their senior year in 2026?
“I don’t feel old.” My Grandma used to say. I understand, now, Grandma.
“Life has a way of moving in big circles. You never know what the next turn will bring around.” My friend, Brian, once said. I see it now. The wheel turning, rolling days into months into years, spinning out patterns and habits, consequences and results.
I wrote the speech in generalities. Talking about trends, technology, fashion. Favorite teachers. World events. I stood on the stage I had not graced in an official capacity since 2002, with my former classmates looking up at me, and talked to the kids about JNCO jeans, Napster and Limewire, how no one had a cell phone let alone a smart phone. We graduated from high school before anyone knew what Facebook was. 9/11 happened a month into our Senior year. We lost friends in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Later, after the speech, on the ride home from school, my son asked me what I missed most about my life 25 years ago. I had practiced my speech for him and I could tell he had been thinking about it all day. The cursor on the blank page blinked in my mind. What did I miss most?
I missed when I didn’t have to pay a subscription for everything. I bought it, I own it.
I miss pre-Patriot Act America.
I miss feeling like the whole world was stretched out before me, ready for me to pluck the parts I wanted to turn into my future.
I miss the time before I ever saw someone overdose, ever experienced domestic violence, ever struggled to pay the rent.
I miss who I was before a man I used to love stood in front of me with rage in his eyes and told me he would kill me.
I miss who I was before I heard the words “he took his life last night.”
I miss who I was before I cried in the shower because life as a caregiver for a brain cancer patient who also happens to be my favorite person in the world was a living nightmare. Before I ever knew what it was like to watch that person take their last breath.
I miss who I was before I became who I had to be.
I couldn’t articulate these things, so I distilled it into one truth:
“I miss when Papa was still alive, dude.”
“Me too.”
Time collapsed on itself and I saw somewhere in the quantum field a room full of people dishing pinto beans and hot red chili onto plates, scooping the chili into warm, freshly made tortillas. With a fire crackling in the fireplace, snow outside, and Christmas music playing in the background. In the room we are laughing and living and remembering in the sparkling way only the holidays bring out. Uncle Tom, Uncle Tim, Aunt Connie, Aunt Danette, Dad, both Grandmas, the Grandpa I never met. Cousins, siblings. They are all alive and we are together.
When we were all together.
Multiple studies have been conducted over time proving out this little collapsed capsule of time that came to mind when my sweet son asked me what I missed.
And I remembered the study I read where hospice nurses were asked to list up to five reflections they heard most frequently from terminal patients. I worked with AI to find the study and correctly cite the outcome:
Concern about loved ones was the most common response, mentioned by half of the nurses surveyed. Regrets—including working too much—came up 42 percent of the time, compared to 36 percent for gratitude. This research suggests that end-of-life regrets are often selfless, centered on relationships rather than personal failings.
I looked at my son after I answered his question. I didn’t know they were the good old days while I was living them. I took them for granted, as you do. He won’t know that he is living the good old days right now. That’s why anxious moms insist on taking photos and why sometimes the dishes can stay dirty in the sink so we can make one more memory laughing at the table.
“Dude, you get one shot at your life. You can waste time and fart around hoping everything works out, or you can decide every day what matters to you and go chase it. The people who love you are the ones who will mean the most.”
He heard the I want you to know this is important voice I often use when doling out advice.
“Ok, Mom.” He rolled his eyes.
Time tends to collapse on itself within our memories. Compressed and distilled into what mattered, omitting what did not. Somewhere, riffling through those pages, is a thread that ties who we are, who we were, to who we are becoming. Maybe not today, but 25 years from now he’s going to tuck away a picture in the quantum field he will call Home, and he will understand.
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