• Throw those regrets and longing of the past in the trash where they belong
We say, “Time is flying so fast” whenever we approach the end of something significant. As today is the last day of the year, I guarantee that someone somewhere is lamenting about how the year went by so fast, and how he or she could not get anything done. I am probably one of the people who will swear that 2021 whizzed by! I went from being a carefree spontaneous youth to being a weary mother whose days are dictated by an infant.
It was the first week of the year 2021 when we found out we were expecting. I spent a good amount of my pregnancy enjoying the process and looking forward to the day our baby would finally arrive. Right now, as I look back, I see how quickly everything went by. As I face sleepless nights, I can’t help but look back at how fast the year went by. In the blink of an eye, I had been pregnant, gone through a tough emergency C-section, an even harder healing process to having my hands full with a cheeky little pumpkin.
Do you know what I thought of when I could not sleep during my third trimester? Do you know what I wanted the most during my C-section healing process? For time to pass. It is as simple as that. When we go through hard times, we feel as though time is moving too slowly for our liking, and all we crave is the future. However, when the future we longed for passes us by in haste, we complain that time is indeed moving fast.
The whole notion of feeling as though time flies by stems from regret or a longing for something in the past. Something I have been guilty of these past few months. I regretted putting on too much weight and not shedding it faster; I longed for some parts of the old me pre-baby and when I started to finally do something fiscally productive, I kept wondering how far I’d be if I had started it sooner.
Most of us are weighed down by these feelings of regret and longing of the past because the present reminds us of just how fast time passes us by. In high school, one boy was seriously injured as his friends splashed him with water, as was tradition for anyone celebrating a birthday. These celebrations, however, ended up with the birthday boy admitted to the Emergency Room. Next day the visibly upset headmistress got up at assembly to share her disappointment. “What’s so great about losing one year of your life?” she shouted!
Ever since then, I have looked at birthdays differently. While birthdays and New Year’s days are significant turning points in our lives, they are also reminders of loss. They remind us that while we continue the march forward, the time we had is gone never to return.
New Year’s might not be a significant cosmic event, but that regular Saturday gives you an opportunity to do something you haven’t done in the past year; leave everything in the past. Throw those regrets and longing of the past in the trash where they belong. The first day of the year gives us an opportunity to start over. This time round, we can be time-conscious as we move towards our goals with the determination of people who have been given more time to accomplish those goals.
So if you are beating yourself up over not using the past year wisely, toss those feelings away because the New Year is giving us another chance. Let us move forward without regret weighing us down. In the words of Disney’s ‘Frozen’… For God’s sake just, let it go.