oselle: (Default)
oselle ([personal profile] oselle) wrote2011-07-09 09:38 am

Circling the drain

I am horrified, horrified at how quickly time has begun to pass.

They say this happens to everyone as they get older but it's beyond anything I ever imagined.

And it's not just now compared to, say, childhood or adolescence. It's moving faster now than it was even a few years ago.

I was talking in another post about my past fandoms and I realized that I've now been in Supernatural fandom longer than I was actively involved in Lord of the Rings/Elijah Wood combined. LoTR/EW altogether lasted from early 2002 through mid-2005, roughly three-and-a-half years. Next month will mark four full years that I've been in SPN fandom...and yet when I think of LoTR/EW, it seems like that went on forever, and meanwhile, these past four years have just...I don't know where they went. It's getting faster all the time.

I swear, I'll remember something and I'll think, Oh yeah, that was a couple of years ago, and then I'll realize it was six or seven or ten years ago. Last month marked eleven years that I've been at my job. This November it will be five years since my dog died. I have the feeling of being trapped in a car with a jammed gas pedal and no brakes...and hurtling right toward a concrete wall. Hurtling downhill toward a concrete wall. Faster all the time.

There's something ominous about this because I think it has to do with death. The closer you get to it, the faster things go. It's an inelegant metaphor, but it makes me think of water going down a tub. When the tub is full, the water's moving so slowly you can hardly tell it's going out at all. That's like childhood, when time seems to stand still. The more the tub drains, the faster the water moves. That's adulthood, slipping by faster and faster. When the water's almost all gone, it's moving so fast that it's just a blur. That's where I'm at now. Everything's just a blur. Circling the drain.

Jesus Christ, someone put a stopper in this thing.

[identity profile] ramalama.livejournal.com 2011-07-11 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Ugh, I know, I know. That's what a lot of that nostalgic depression has been about. I'm getting old quickly but still can't do anything while a parent is living. Bleah.

Wow, has it been five years since you lost Daisy? She was a once-in-a-lifetime dog.

[identity profile] oselle.livejournal.com 2011-07-12 12:53 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, and there's nothing like being around your elderly parents to make you feel extra decrepit. I love that little sneak preview of my inevitable future. You know, no other species on earth is set up so that offspring wind up tending to their parents. I think there's a reason for that.

Wow, has it been five years since you lost Daisy? She was a once-in-a-lifetime dog.

She really was. But I think it was the ordeal of her death that really ruined me for having another pet. If she had died in fat, happy old age, I probably would have been delighted to get another dog and start all over again.

[identity profile] ramalama.livejournal.com 2011-07-13 09:41 pm (UTC)(link)
I've made a pact with another childless friend who is also caring for elderly parents that at a certain point we'll just make with the Thelma & Louise. It will probably be my only opportunity to see the Grand Canyon at this rate. Of course, it won't be quite as glamorous in a Honda Accord...

[identity profile] oselle.livejournal.com 2011-07-14 12:40 am (UTC)(link)
I've made a pact with another childless friend who is also caring for elderly parents that at a certain point we'll just make with the Thelma & Louise.

SHOTGUN!