Unstuck

I measure time by the distance between significant events in memory. I’m not talking about the day Kennedy was shot or anything. For me, relationships are the best milestones of time-travel ..especially the endings. If I can locate an event between two meaningful relationships, I get a sense of time passing. When I was a younger dood, events in life were relatively new, so they had greater significance ..like my first high ..my first lay ..my first meaningful relationship and first tragic ending. I could feel myself moving through time. Not anymore. Now I think of events that occurred before my marriage, and those that occurred after. Since many don’t measure up, I discount them and they dissolve ..leaving me without anything to hang on to. I feel like Billy Pilgrim who became unstuck in time. Prior episodes blend together and occasionally replay as though they just happened, or worse, as though they’re happening now. I’m having lunch with friends the other day when a prior visit to Laguna Beach pops into my head. Suddenly the table disappears and I’m plunging into the water. “Where’s Bill ..?” “Oh, he’s time-tripping again.” Now I’m traveling back to the time when I first heard that term used.