Every new year is a time for reflection. I don't make New Year's resolutions, but I like to take stock of the past year and make a plan for the year ahead. This year I am thinking a lot about the passage of time.

Time seems to speed up as we age. When I was a girl I used to calculate my age in the year 2000. Back then 55 seemed like such a long way off. Now it is 2010 and I am 65 years old. It seems to have happened so suddenly.

Einstein talked about the relativity of time. When I was a girl the millennium seemed a distant notion; yet it arrived before I knew what had happened. Now a decade later Y2K is a faint memory. How does that happen?

I have been thinking about the passage of time in part  because we are currently developing a new workshop entitled "Creative Aging: Embracing the Second Half of Life." Gary, our friend and colleague Wendy Huntington and I have been having great fun learning about aging and developing the workshop. Our concept of time is something we have been discussing since Gary discovered a book called The Time Paradox by Phil Zimbardo.

It is always interesting to me that when I focus on a topic I find new information in many interesting places. For example, shortly after we began planning the workshop, I received a request to review a book about creativity. It has turned out to be quite relevant. The book, The Smile at the Heart of Things: Essays and Life Stories by Brian H. Peterson is a lovely reflection on a creative life. Peterson wrote eloquently about his own life as a means to understand it for himself. In the process he informs the reader about life and the value of personal stories as a way to mark the passage of time.

I am interested in my own creative aging as well as teaching others about the topic. Like Brian H. Peterson I am interested in my own stories. They help me to understand who I am and how I have grown as time has passed. My creativity resides in my art work and writing, but also in the way I live my life. I want to understand where I have come from and plan for an interesting and engaging future, but mostly I am interested in finding ways to live fully right now.

In the past I was very focused on my career. I was and am good at  planning, organizing and completing tasks. I have never excelled at things requiring spontaneity and play; nor have I had an over attachment to the past. My commitment is to seek a new balance between past, present and future. I am going to forge a new relationship with time, one that allows for more play while appreciating my past and keeping an eye on my future.

Let us all embrace the New Year. It's time! Let us treasure each moment. Let us fill our lives with enough and be aware enough to notice all that we have.

© C O P Y R I G H T   2 0 1 0.  Mary Sullivan Holdgrafer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.