the end of the world
(part nine)
((without love))
(((hannah and caroline and me)))
((((part thirty-seven))))
(((((caroline turns three)))))


"is breathing just the ticking of an unwanted clock counting down the time it takes for you to comprehend the sheer magnitude of every single precious breath you've ever wasted?"





"time flies by."

or does it?

"it doesn't seem possible."

spoken by someone that lives a long way away.

"we can't believe she's so grown up either."

even her parents aren't paying attention!

i am being snarky, obviously, but this "time flies by" sentiment, well, i just don't buy into it anymore. for, right or wrong, to use a very predictable sports metaphor, everything slowed down for me last summer.

i mean, really, that's life anyway. or experience. or time served. or whatever. once you do something long enough, you get better at it unless you are intentionally sabotaging your own efforts. you see where "the blitzes" are coming from. you can "audible" around the obstacles. life, just like sports, slows down and you are better at it.

along with that, you hope to become more appreciative of it, too.

"all in nature ends in tragedy and i was the first to finally fade away from my grandfather's memory..."

these types of things happen way the fuck too often. i saw a commercial yesterday that said a woman was diagnosed with breast cancer every THREE MINUTES. is that fucking right? jesus. every three minutes, someone, some human that we share this earth with's life and their mindview is completely turned on it's head. and that's just from breast cancer. that doesn't count kidney cancer, or any other (fuck you) cancer or heart disease or stroke or alzheimer's or name that nasty/messed up anomaly that can happen to the human body. we go tripping along the light fantastic until life smashes us in the face. we are left to reimagine our foundation or hope that the one we had before the beating was strong enough to hold, strong enough to rebuild on top of. sometimes, it is. sometimes, it's not.

it took a couple years for a caroline to give a shit about who i was and deem me cool enough to share her air. thus, this birthday was pretty special for me and her. not that i went out of my way to do anything especially memorable. i didn't dress up as a clown and melt her face with fear. i didn't bring an elephant to her party. she did seem genuinely excited to share things with me, though, and that is pretty majestic.

in my eyes, caroline is a really old three year old. time hasn't flown by. it's gone by just the way it should have. slow and agonizing at times. breathy and easy at times. borderline orgasmic when she and her sister are playing with each other on the floor or laughing together or giving her parents a small window into the future and what will certainly be adventure after adventure after pregnancy (hopefully, not) and adventure.

"so much misery. so much indifference. so much suffering...this world is nothing more than what we make of it..."

you know, i don't really know shit about anything. but i would argue that life only moves too fast when we are looking backwards. in the now, a second is always a second. 60 seconds make a minute. 60 minutes make an hour. then it takes 24 damn hours to make even one day. that's a long-ass time. if you let it be that.

this world, our lives are nothing more than what we make of it. effing cheesy, really.

but true. here is to a beautiful little girl that, along with her sister and mother and my friends make my life go by just fast/slow enough.

"...too bad this child looks nothing like her daddy, ...right?"

i am so sorry. but happy birthday anyway, caroline.