"so what's changed with you?"

“So what’s changed with you?”

Well, the other day I was reading Mere Christianity, but today I’m reading Fahrenheit 451. And instead of running to Spoon or Band of Horses today, I ran to Dashboard Confessional (you may think they’re whiney, but that steady kick drum and those rolling lyrics speak to my running shoes).

“What do you do when your small pond dries up?” That’s the first sentence of a novel I actually dreamed about writing the other night. This sentence changed the way I look at the “sagging” courthouse, and the worn down buildings, and the quiet of my dying town.

Sometimes my toenails are red, and sometimes they’re pink, and sometimes they’re not painted at all.

I never step in the exact same place, the exact same way I did yesterday. Sometimes I actually use the mouthwash next to my sink, and sometimes I only consider it. I forget different things at different times; I lose my keys one day, and don’t even hesitate to find them the next.

The gas in my car runs out. Always. And it won’t stop doing this.

I’m determined to do or say something on one day, but I forget altogether the next. I don’t eat the same, or dress the same, or speak the same every single day.

Some days I talk a lot, and some, barely at all.

The last time I was asked this question, I’m pretty sure I responded that I was the same as I have always been, but I’m never the same as I have always been. If so, I still would be unable to pronounce my “R,” I’d be even worse at spelling, and I’d probably be four or three or two or one.

My missing tooth wouldn’t have grown back. My heart wouldn’t have gotten all better. My scratch wouldn’t have become a scar. My toenails wouldn’t have changed color. That freckle that I like so much wouldn’t be there…

Maybe there’s nothing really amazing about change. But I think there is something remarkable about it. About the days always changing, the seasons, the hours, the minutes; this one being different from the next. There’s something about the wrinkles in a face, and the graying of hair, or the way these pair of shoes are worn this day and those the next. I’ll walk today, and drive tomorrow. I’ll have long hair now, but I had short hair then.

I like change. Imagine what could be in five years. In five years I’ll be 28, who knows where I’ll be, or what I’ll be doing. I could be married, I could be single, I could be running with my dog in a park.

And in five more years…I’ll be 33. And in five more 38. And in five more 43. And in 5 more 48.

Do you see how quickly it all goes?

I think I don’t take enough advantage of the change of it all. I make it monotonous. I make it like it’s nothing. Time ticks, but so what. Let it tick. It never gets anywhere, but all the while, Time is carrying me, and you, on his back across the seconds, and the days, and the years, and all the while we change, oblivious of the present until we’ve gotten far into the future.

I remember when I used to think, “next year I’ll finally be old enough…” And then it would come and I’d feel the same, and I’d hope for the next year to be different. And what’s funny is that things were changing; braces were getting put on or taken off, hair was cut, new things were seen or done, and before I knew it, I was graduating, and only when I was “five years later” could I see the whole picture, or the before and after.

I think I’m always looking forward to the change. I’m looking forward to the job, and the house, and the trip to Italy. I wonder if in looking so far to the future, I fast forward and forget that there’s enough change happening today, and though it isn’t marked in bold letters or with red writing, the changes now are just as significant as the changes to be.

Maybe every time someone asks me what’s changed, the changes will be too small, and seemingly insignificant for me to make any “worthwhile” observations. Who cares if my toenails are a different color, or what song I ran to, or what book I’ve changed to, or what color my hair is? And the real changes that are going on are shoved out of the way for the “big” changes, and those aren’t really noticeable until a good bit of time has passed…

So, it seems we spend most of our lives believing we are constant because we imagine we are always the same. But then one day, a wrinkle appears, though it was probably there before it just magically made itself known, but one day, you really see it. And it’s hard to notice that one gray hair, but with enough time, you’ll notice a handful. And the pain you feel seems like it will hurt forever, until that morning you wake up, and it has just magically disappeared, when really, it was the individual second that carried you to that point.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Today I have no wrinkles, but tomorrow I’m closer and that little wrinkle that will be there in who knows how many years is already pushing itself up to the surface. And the person “I’m going to be” already is becoming. And the things I will “learn in the future” are already being taught.

Today is tomorrow. And I’m already changing. And I’d like to stop waiting for the future for things to “be” because, well, they already are. And there’s no point in waiting around for it to happen, because it already is.

“So what’s changed with me?”

Well second by second, everything.