Distortion of Time

It’s peculiar how everyone is in such similar positions yet we’re all much further apart than we thought we’d be. All we try to do in life is to connect, to meet people similar to you. We all want to meet that one person who knows how to deal with every aspect of you. If connecting is our purpose, then what does this mean for us? Will we now learn of new ways of connecting or will we focus on ourselves instead of finding someone who can take care of us instead? This time has become a period in which we can start anything we always wanted to start. To begin conversations with people you were always afraid to talk to. To do what was thought of as impossible, as extremely unlikely. 

What is interesting to talk about is what is deemed as necessary in this time of crisis. Obviously everyone that is combatting this in the frontline, but that isn’t what I mean. There are things which are moving us along, dragging us out of this funk. The movies, the books and the shows. These things have been bringing some excitement to our otherwise stale lives. It has brought new conversation starters and has even started arguments. Yet in this world of isolation it brings us together while still staying apart. 

The unknown has always been something that people fear. Not knowing who you are, what you’re meant to do or even where you’ll be is something that causes anxiety, stress and potentially depression. Now all we know is the unknown. The unforgivable truth that is having no knowledge of what will come next. Some are in worse places than others, some more stressed than others, but we’re all a piece of sand in an hourglass. Just moving along as time passes by but not knowing when it will stop changing sides. How do we plan for the unknown? How do we live while not knowing what will be. What will return and what will disappear. How do we know what will adapt, what will transform or what will maintain. Will it only be us that changes? 

Time as it used to be, keeps going. It is something moving at a constant velocity, never decreasing or increasing speed. Yet while stuck in one place distortions are formed. Time warps and thus either speeds up and takes us along or decides to drag us along in the mud. Some things help us go through the day without even thinking of the slowness of life. We have reached a point where the fastest thing being seen is the wind. Time has decided to take it mile by mile. What are we to do, if not follow. The good thing about time is that it will keep moving. Time does not stop, and therefore we will always keep going. Life has become a tracker of time. We keep waiting for the next move without even knowing when it will be. All that can be done is to keep finding things to distract from the distortion of time which has almost frozen us in this period of isolation. 

Train-Wreck of Memories

Ever since you were young, you were taught to seize the moment. Except they never said you had to let it go. Moments are memories that are cherished, that we live by. When you live by them, your life then becomes a series of distant memories that were stored in moments. The moments then become blurs of your past existence, of your old self. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, years have gone by and all the moments that you once seized, stop being moments. They stop living, they stop breathing, they stop replaying in your head. You then stop remembering. Everything you thought you knew changes, you finally realize that life is a confusing, horrid, imperfect train-wreck of moments. All you can do is try to pick up the pieces of that once new train. Then you can fully seize the moment where you finally let your old self go. Along with the fixed train. On their way into the depth of your heart and brain where there, stands rows and rows of jars filled with memories, moments, life.

I just wish that we could pull out of this black hole that is consuming our lives so that when we come out on the other end, we aren't completely and utterly destroyed, we're just slightly damaged like everyone else.

• Nina Ellery Oliveira