Sometimes, time seems to crawl by. I’m sure all of you can relate to those moments. Maybe you were trapped in a boring meeting at work, watching the minute hand on that bromidic clock lazily make its orbit, mocking in its languid tick, tick, tick. Or perhaps it was that class we were all forced to take in high school, that glorified home room where you played hangman for what seemed like an eternity, begging for the bell of freedom to toll. Either way, I’m sure everyone can account for moments in their life where time seemed frozen and we begged for its alacrity.

Today is not one of those days.

It hit me that today is September 16th. It’s not a special day or anything. Nothing profound happened in my life on the 16th of September; at least, nothing that I can remember. I just woke up today and realized how quickly my life is going. I have now been 28 years old for 2 months and 5 days. I swear, just yesterday I was complaining about how I couldn’t wait to be 21! To be able to drink legally, such an important milestone of adulthood [or so I thought.] Where did the time go?

At this point, I have so many projects I’ve started and so many more that I’m trying to find the time to begin. I have a folder on my laptop that says “Don’t Forget!” and inside are a dozen or so stories, poems, screenplays, and idea concepts that I’ve promised to make time for. To develop, to revise, and to finish. That folder stares at me when I waste time, such as this moment now, or when I stop to check my Facebook, laugh at TMZ, or read a fellow writer’s blog about their trip to the zoo.

I can feel it’s pixelated eyes on me, disdainfully watching as I piddle away the precious minutes of free time that could be better spent finishing Transfusion, a screenplay I want to submit to a contest in less than two weeks. It’s barely halfway done. Or perhaps the anthology of poetry I’ve started! The folder is waiting for an opportunity to regurgitate my word documents of half-finished verse onto my desktop, to bind me to this office chair with some sort of electronic force field and make me complete what I’ve started! If only it would!

But no. It’s just a folder. Blue, two-dimensional, and powerless against the whims that drive me to walk away from my little office by the window and perhaps take my puppies for a walk they didn’t quite need just yet.

I wish I could personify that little cerulean pocket of pixels; give it the power to dictate my day like our teachers used to in grade school. It’s funny how much more we used to accomplish when our days were regimented for us! Seven subjects, lunch, and sports – all in the course of eight hours! Now, I can waste twelve hours on social media sites alone.

Alas, there is no one standing over me anymore. I spent eighteen years of my life begging for my freedom, petitioning for the right to manage my own time. Now I have it! The hours are mine, as limited as they are after my obligations [work, school, family, etc] are met. So… what am I going to do with them?

I think I’m going to the beach.