We will not always have this.

I like to think time is not linear.

It’s comforting to imagine time is never  lost but instead always existing.  The past, the present, and all things yet to come.

What if those fleeting feelings of firsts are never gone?   Because those are precious, aren’t they?  And so quickly lost.  The joy of seeing a child’s first steps, the thrill of first loves, the pain of that first heartbreak.

What if that feeling, those moments, never actually go away?  What if they can stay, always part of us, never leaving us, every memory etched into our souls, a lattice of love, hate, sadness, regret, and everything in between.

Or maybe they don’t.  Maybe they are truly lost.  Like a puff of smoke, or a ripple in a pond.  Gone as quickly as they came.

I suppose, in the end, it doesn’t matter.

This time we think we have, be it a linear strand or coalescing spools of thread, always ends as abruptly as it starts.   And all we can grasp are fleeting moments, fated to pass.