Which Do We Actually Need More, an Eternity to Love or More Presence in the Moment?
The Parent Immortal
As a teenager, the vampire myth appealed to me like no other. I romanticized the idea of living forever and of maintaining a hold on the youthful invincibility that even then I feared ending. I felt like I was born with a hyper-awareness that time was running out, and it hunted me daily.
As a parent I secretly wish for another type of immortality as I watch my children age, my own body rapidly becoming something other than I am used to, and time moving altogether too quickly. Now the desire is to achieve the impossible of suspending time for a while so I can taste the beauty in my days for as long as possible.
I am grateful that my four children have a decade between them, as the experience of raising a teenager reassures me that the loss of the toddler will be replaced by something far different but equally as wonderful. Yes, teens are wonderful at times.
But even while I muse on the changing nature of my little secret obsession with living forever, I’m aware that eternity isn’t what I’m looking for, rather an extension of ‘right now’. For that matter, all the right nows. It’s not the future I crave, or to celebrate my hundredth birthday. It is to slow down the life I have today so I can squeeze…
