Love in the Carry-On

With Little One around, my grandparents were often reminded of times when their children were small, and I got to hear a lot of stories from when they were a young family caught up in the whirlwind of diapers and stories and steamed carrots like J and I are now. They tended to trail off into "...it goes by so fast."
Parents of all ages and varieties are always saying that, aren't we Peanuts? What is the deal with that? No one can get over it!
The thing is, when you don't have kids and you're just you, or you and some other adult perhaps, it's easy to just sort of coast around a little. You become absorbed in the things that you are doing, and you might not notice your velocity too much. I think it's because as grown-ups we don't change too much. I'm just C, and next year and the next I'll still be me, looking and thinking and feeling generally the same. Stop looking at my gray hairs. I said generally!
It's like being on a train with the window shades drawn. You read your book. Do some work, maybe watch a DVD. You have some conversations with your spouse, maybe chat with a few strangers. Have lunch take a nap. You can feel a sort of gentle hum as you go, but you you can't really tell how fast the train is moving.
Having children is like removing (permanently) the shades from the windows. You are forced into a frame of reference. Every day they are changed; taller, faster, smarter. Today there is a new word! Tomorrow they learn to climb the bookcase! By next week, they'll have outgrown all their clothes. They learn to sit/crawl/walk/speak/read/solve for x/reprogram your computer/drive. The milestones fly by.
Like looking out the train window and seeing towns and orchards whoosh past almost the same minute you spot them on the horizon, and you sort of catch your breath and grip the armrests and think, Whoa. We are going really, really fast.
It can be thrilling, looking for what is coming up next. It can be sort of sad, not having been able to stop and stay awhile in some of the nicer spots. Which makes it hard sometimes to just focus on not blinking and enjoy the ride. Especially if you have work to do and your spouse to talk to and a book or two to read on the way. I know there are a lot of things I packed for this trip that I might not have time to get to. But that's ok- I want to pay attention to those landmarks as I pass them. You can miss whole cities if you aren't paying attention!
And it is after all a one-way ride.

Something I have learned from my time here with my grandparents. Whether you have kids or not, the train is moving. However we spend our time on it, whatever souvenirs we pick up along the way...well at some point we get where we're going, don't we. At the end, we are left with the knowledge of other tracks we never followed, of things behind us that we never got to. Some of us are are left with memories of where we have been, some of us lose those along the way. We do our work, and leave that with the world. We raise our children, and leave them to the world. If we give to others, we leave those gifts out there too. But it matters that we enjoy the journey, because before we know it we're at the end of the ride and what we are left with, is our mortality. But also (if we are very lucky and take good care of it all along the way) something else, too.