Time

I’m reading Beautiful Chaos by Jessica Urlcihs, and her poem “I Would Tell Her” is about things she would tell herself in her early days of motherhood. What struck me most about this poem is how it ends. Urlichs says:

Only I won’t tell her these things, because she will forget,

like we all do, so that we can discover them

for ourselves, as we’re meant to

Reading this book coincided with one of the few times my sons were okay with me listening to my own music on a car ride. We were listening to Zach Bryan, and his song “DeAnn’s Denim” came on. The first line in the chorus says, “Time changes all you’ll see.”

Both of these encounters reminded me of something I all too often forget — that some learning is gained only over time.

As a lifelong perfectionist, I tend to learn more towards striving to obtain my highest level of achievement now. I don’t naturally leave much room for growth over time. But how much of this pressure is unnecessary? How much of this learning is only gained through the passing of time?

We tend to better understand this with babies. Nobody in their right mind expects a baby to walk when born. We understand it takes months to reach that milestone, and we find ourselves enjoying the other milestones along the way to those first steps.

But somewhere along the line, we lose that patience and perspective. We expect toddlers to manage emotions they have never encountered before; we expect teens to exhibit a level of responsibility that is newfound territory for them; we expect young adults to carry a wisdom that is not yet theirs to hold.

So perhaps we put a little less pressure on ourselves when we feel like there is something we should know or be able to do and we aren’t there yet. Because the answer may not be that we aren’t trying hard enough, but that not enough time has passed.