Traveling through time

As children, we dream of growing older; when we are older, we dream of being children. We let our lives pass us by because we have yet to learn that the harder you yearn for time, the faster it passes. This is how my story begins.

In October of my freshman year, I took an accidental trip down memory lane. One day after school, I decided to take the long way home. I needed time to think. So off I went, walking through the grass. That was how I came to find a gap in the fence lining the school property. I passed through this gap and followed the treeline until I found myself in the far fields behind the neighborhood.

Suddenly, I remembered it was here through the fence between the school and the fields that I watched older kids having their high school graduation ceremony. In cap and gown (长袍), they stood in the middle of the field. They looked like they were having the most fun I had ever seen anyone have; they looked free.

Years later, I walked through that field on my way home from that same high school. The soccer nets were long gone, and the paint lines had washed away with the rain, but there it was, just as I remembered it. The old field felt like a moment trapped in time, a long-forgotten memory. Here I was, standing in between my past and my present and trying so hard to figure out just how all of those years had passed me by so quickly. The gap in the fence seemed like a distinct line between my years. A doorway between 5 and 15.

I've since given this place a name, Tempus Illud, a place between places. I try to take the long way home at least once a month now. Sometimes, when I cross that bridge, I see that younger version of myself. She is so young and so desperate to speed up time. I see her peering through the fence at those graduates in the cap and gown, and she's wishing she could be just like them. She, too, could feel so free that she might just grow wings and fly away. Now I'm preparing to wear the cap and gown in a few short months. But this time, I wish to leave time to its own devices.

The harder you yearn for time, the faster it passes you by. So I no longer yearn. The passage of time is inevitable, and you can't avoid it, but you can appreciate it. James Taylor sings, "The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time… Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill, but since we're on our way down, we might as well enjoy the ride. "

For nearly a decade now, Merebeth has been a self-employed pet transport specialist. Her pet transport job was born of the financial crisis (危机) in the late 2000s. The downturn hit the real estate (房地产) firm where she had worked for ten years as an office manager. The firm went broke and left her looking for a new job. One day, while driving near her home, she saw a dog wandering on the road, clearly lost She took it home, and her sister in Denver agreed to take it This was a loving home for sure, but 1. 600 miles away. It didn't take long for
Merebeth to decide to drive the dog there herself. It was her first road trip to her new job.

Merebeth's pet delivery service also satisfies her wanderlust. It has taken her to every state in the US except Montana Washington, and Oregon, she says proudly. If she wants to visit a new place, she will simply find a pet with transport needs there. She travels in all weathers. She has driven through 55 mph winds in Wyoming, heavy flooding and storms in Alabama and total whiteout conditions in Kansas.

This wanderlust is inherited from her father, she says. He moved their family from Canada to California when she was one year old, because he wanted them to explore a new place together As soon as she graduated from high school, she left home to live on Catalina Island off the Californian coast, away from her parents, where she enjoyed a life of sailing and off-road biking.

It turns out that pet transporting pays quite well at about $30, 000 per year before tax. She doesn't work in summer; as it would be unpleasantly hot for the animals in the car; even with air conditioning. As autumn comes, she gets restless-the same old wanderlust returning. It's a call she must heed alone, though. Merebeth says, "When I am on the road, I'm just in my own world. I've always been independent-spirited, and I just feel strongly that I mush help animals. "

On James Owen's 70th birthday, he saw a video of himself walking with difficulty up to the stage where he was giving a talk. "I looked like an old man," says Owen, who built a successful career on Wall Street.

He was about 25 pounds overweight and had chronic trouble with his back, knees, and shoulders. But instead of giving in to age, Owen decided to set an ambitious five-year goal: He wanted to be pain-free, and he decided the way to get there was through exercise--even though at the time he couldn't do a single push-up.

Owen began his new exercise regimen (养生计划) by walking, though he became out of breath after five minutes. But that didn't discourage him. He kept at the walks every day, along with some stretching, Once he had those basics down, he started weight lifting and hired a personal trainer to teach him and to design a routine he could follow on his own. The last piece was finding other activities he enjoyed, which turned out to be cycling and swimming.

In less than five years, Owen was able to do three sets of 50 push-ups each and walk for miles each day. And yes, he was free of aches and pains.

Owen used his experience to write a book called Just Move! A New Approach to Fitness After 50, in which he details how older adults can safely get off the couch and add more movement to their lives. The key: getting started, even if you walk just three blocks, which was all he could manage at first. "Think of it as movement, not exercise," he says. "The key is slow and steady progress."

Now 81 and retired, Owen exercises an hour a day, six days a week. "It is the best investment I've ever made in my life," he says.