The weeks do not fly so much as they race. A frantic regatta of days, each one catching a greater gust and passing the others. Before you have a chance to say, Hey, Monday–you again? you are greeting Friday with, Thank God it’s you.

Time is playing its tricks on me.

It feels fluid again. Not as disorienting as at the doldrums of the pandemic, when I felt compelled to share the occasional “PSA: Today is Monday”, but not the same as Before. I have one foot in the pandemic and one out. One foot in retreat, and one standing in the wide world. The mind tries to keep up with these gymnastics; my center is doing the splits.

These trickster days become wicked prankster years. Lying on my side in a colonoscopy recovery room (for goodness sakes!), a purple-grey gown wrapping my body and propofol wearing off, I asked the nurse — a kid half my age, within spitting distance of my own kids’ age — how did I become 52? It was supposed to be my parents in there, and me off at college. He smiled, understanding I was telling him, I was your age once. This is waiting for you, too.

An hour earlier, I had texted my friend from the dressing room, “Do I want the twilight or the full knockout?” This is the kind of thing we ask our friends now; this same girl I asked for boy advice at 14, love advice at 27, and parenting advice…well, still.

And maybe it is not all bad, to lose track of days and hours, or even years. To have to pause when you wake up while you figure out what day it is, and what role that means you will play: Am I packing someone’s lunch, or sleeping in? Am I planning my family, or my empty nest? To make dinner plans with a friend, look into her eyes and forget the years, or better yet, to see each of those years, those wisps of gray materializing at our crowns (okay, fine — mine, not hers), like shimmering medals for having arrived at this mile marker, with the finish line (god willing) far from our view.

With love, a few extra deep breaths, and appreciation for your time here,

Laura

P.S. In case you missed it, I think you’ll enjoy my post this week on Medium: How to Structure a Writing Retreat, which pertains to life beyond writing, and could just as easily have been called, “How to Slow Down and Do Whatever the Heck Calls to You.”

And remember you can follow me on Medium for free, or subscribe for unlimited access to all of Medium’s articles, which supports my work and that of other writers.

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Laura Nicole Diamond is the author of Shelter Us: a novel, Dance with Me: a love letter, and editor of the anthology Deliver Me: True Confessions of Motherhood. She is at work on a memoir about becoming a foster mom to a teenage asylum-seeker. Follow more of her writing on Medium.