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TERPSTRA: Time to get a new haircut

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Time.

It’s really all we have in the end if you think about it — at least on this earth.

Time to get comfortable. Time to work out — or not. Time to do the things we want to do and maybe change the things we don’t want to do so we can have time … forget it.

That took too long of time to read.

Kelly Terpstra
Kelly Terpstra

There’s a great song I like by Clint Black, called “Killin’ Time.” I don’t remember what year it came out, late 80s? I don’t know, somewhere around there. I’m not looking it up on Google — that takes more time than I am willing to share at this moment.

I remember a time not all that long ago when none of us had cellphones or internet. Sounds strange now, but it was true. These things did happen and we did live through this mysterious age of actually talking to people for more than 15 seconds.

We had to get permission to use the school phone and that hung on a wall somewhere in a lobby. If you used that phone, it was not to order a pizza, but for emergency purposes only. We didn’t take tests online! Pencil and paper would do just fine.

Memories were created not by social media posts, but by actually doing things. We had cameras to capture the moment and show them to our friends later. Or we could talk on the phone and reminisce about that time or this time.

If we liked something, we’d say it to your face. Or send you a letter that you’d receive three days later. How about the secret notes that were transcribed on of all things — paper! Covertly passed from one friend to another and two or three periods later, reached its final intended target. Will this person respond by the sixth period or tomorrow? I have to wait another day for a response??!!?? I don’t have time for this.

But when I think of time, more often than not, my mind shifts to the serious side of things.

I wonder about people who will remain behind bars and incarcerated for things I am sure a lot of them regret. A lifetime of banishment to a prison cell or yard isn’t my idea of a good time. Most  have an opportunity to become better, to take the time to make amends and move on with their lives. Some do, some don’t. Maybe it’s not their time, just quite yet.

For some, the damage has been done and their time on earth was stopped short. A lot are victims as a result of meaningless crimes or actions done by people that are now serving time and paying a price for misdeeds or horrible acts they perpetrated. A lot of those victims survived, though, and live with pain and frustration, their lives forever altered. There’s time to heal, though, too.

Maybe not back to being normal, but back to being better.  

As I get older, I realize I wasted a lot of time. Time not focused on what was important and stressing about things that in the end made me want to turn back time and do it over again.

That’s in a perfect world and we only get so many do-overs.

I often think of the story about Rip Van Winkle, a fairytale I read as a kid. Essentially the story goes like this.

Rip, who is Dutch and lives in New York, escapes into the mountains of the Catskills along with his dog to get away from his nagging wife. He later encounters a group of bearded men playing nine-pins (bowling) and then proceeds to drink their jenever (Dutch gin). He soon falls asleep.

When he awakens, he finds that his beard has grown to a foot in length and his dog is nowhere to be seen. He returns to his village, but recognizes not one face. He later learns that most of his friends were killed fighting the American Revolutionary War. He is also informed that there is another Rip Van Winkle in town — his now adult son.

People also break the news to him that his wife has died and he also has a grown-up daughter. In the end, Rip Sr. finds out that he has been asleep for 20 years.

The moral of the story is this: the world stops for no one, even if we are ready for it to change or not. Important moments might have been missed, but there’s no time like the present to create or experience new ones.

Which gets me to thinking … I need a haircut.

 

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