I just finished that Malcolm Gladwell book. It's interesting. Really interesting.
Today, Naomi and I went out and there are two things I want to remember from today. First, in the library, I was holding her over my shoulder while she slept. And I sat, her whole body pressed up against my chest and her face on my neck, reading an introduction to Nietzsche's writings and life. Second, we were in McDonald's, sitting in the same side of a booth, eating ice cream. If this blog is worth anything, it is worth jotting that down so that when I come back in six months or a year or ten, I can remember what that felt like because I am likely to forget.
These two things are already gone, already memories, but I know that tomorrow I will be able to relive them in small ways, perhaps go to the pond or lie on the living room carpet together and she will only be one day older. There will be no difference. Perhaps in one year or two or three, I will think back on this and wish for it, remembering it and wanting it back.
At twenty six, I should not be as obsessed about the passage of time as I am. I should not be hung up on this perpetual awareness that I am going to be dead some day. It's silly. My friend Gary is actually dying — every six months he has a CT scan and gets to be told whether or not his cancer is back. This last time it did not come back, so he has six months until he has to go back. He is an atheist and not nearly as bothered by his actual death as I am about my hypothetical one. There is something wrong with that. I want to blame someone for my uneasiness. For him, or so he says, the lights will go out and that will be it. Live each day to its fullest.
My second daughter will be born in less than six weeks, but I cannot find myself wanting time to speed up at all, for as miserable as pregnancy is for everyone around it. No, I don't want her to be born just yet.