Time, you elusive friend!

I’ve spent the better part of my last two days mourning the departure of my best friend to his college in a city far away from home… I’ve prayed and prayed to God to give me just five more minutes with him… just five! Five more minutes to tell him how much I love him, five more minutes to hear him tell me how much he loves me… but alas! Even God’s helpless in front of the bullish ways of time…
I’ve grown hearing how time waits for none and how we must make hay while the sun lasts but it just seems so tough to actually believe those maxims. We’ve always seemed to have time to do so many different great things in life. Be it work, play, read, paint or whatever else our heart’s wished to do! We’ve never had to sit up and look at how we never had time to spend with people who love us. We’ve never stopped for just that one-minute to think back as to why all those different past relations went wrong… We’ve never just paused from our exciting priority of the moment to wonder why is it that we just don’t seem to have the friends the kind our parents have. And now that time’s just slapped me hard in the face I’m forced to take a breather from my super-busy lifestyle and look back at all that I’ve left behind in my rush to outrun others in the rat race called life. And what lies ahead…
And as I can see, from my cosy niche here, at the bottom, I see but dark walls of gloom descending upon us, the human race… We have become so engrossed in our immediate concerns of personal welfare that we’ve just lost track of the path of life… We are so intent at looking where our next step is going to be that we fail to see the cobbled mess, which is the path that lies ahead. I talk here, of our absolute failure to realize the importance of giving time to nurture our relations…we are so busy choosing the roses for our bed that we forget to see the legs of that very dream bed being eaten out by the termites of distance, apathy and mistrust. What is it that we are running so fast for?? To reach pinnacles of financial success? Of fame? Of security?? When is it that we shall realize that all these fortunes are meaningless if we just don’t garner enough relations on the way to share our joys with? And yet, right at the top, I see a shimmer of light, a glimpse of hope… of hope that we still might be able to do something to right this world after all…
‘Out of sight is out of mind’ has never held truer. And the pity is, we just don’t seem to make an effort to stay within sight anymore… friends are so much more dispensable now… Now that life’s become so materialistic we seem to have found substitutes for the security that only a human relation can bring. Which is why we so dread growing old… we know that that’s when the severity of our actions will actually be down upon us and then there shall be no escape… When we are old, and we let time catch up with us, all the memories shall rush by… when we dissed a friend in favor of a promotion… when we ditched our parents in lieu of a night out partying with some people you didn’t even know… how you ruined a relationship by just never stopping to realize that you loved the person. And yet, we might just manage to give ourselves the illusion that we’ve lived our lives well and all that hard work did pay off as we’ve managed to at least book ourselves a decent room in a old age home somewhere and a coffin of the most expensive and comfortable wood there is! Ha! Now that’s a happy life, as I see it!
Sigh!!! So what is that glimmer of hope shining above our heads anyway?? With all the social pressures how is it that we can right the world??? By just listening to our hearts once in a while and taking just that tiny pause from our hectic schedules to love and let love… By realizing the chance life is giving us at having happy times and grabbing that elusive beast with both hands. So I, am going to stop pining for my best friend and pick up the phone and tell him how much I love him… I could immerse myself in work and find other friends in the meantime but alas…. Am but an old school student…