Time, why you punish me?

Time.
I feel it running by me. Like a tipped glass spilling the nectar of life. Dripping lazily, yet quick as rapids, plunking in the river of forever, never to be seen again.

When did I get so Old?

Wasn't it just yesterday I was breathlessly riding my bike, careening down hills, pigtails blowing in the wind? Or hiding behind those old oak trees, you know the ones, panting anxiously, waiting to be tagged?

Where did that time go?

It seemed like just last year I brought that first new baby home. Nervous and scared as I prayed to whatever God would beseech me I not fuck up. Five babies later the last is turning one in a scant few weeks.
I can see them, as if I am a mere spectator, as they fight their way from my womb, throwing themselves into life. They barrel through childhood wanting to be "older", "bigger", "taller", "grown up".
"Slow down" I say, as my elders once said to me. But something inside them can't.

I worry now.
I fear now.

My breath gets caught in my throat and I could choke on it. I am scared to be older. I fight -as many do- to not  get bigger. I still wish I was taller. I sometimes loathe being grown up.

There were things when I was a child, I wanted so bad I could practically taste them. Silly things. Fanciful things. But dreams I let billow in my mind unimpeded. Dreams had no ceiling. They soared so high they touched space. I wanted to be an astronaut. Truly.

I wanted to be an artist, a ballerina, an actress, a singer, a lawyer, a doctor, a physicist, a marine biologist, a fashion designer, an architect, a model, a photographer, a chef, a mother.

I'm a mother always now. That is one job you don't need a degree, you never get paid and you can't ever quit. If you're not careful you might get fired, though. Sometimes, while being a mother, I get to do those other things too.

I write much about fear. I have seen that trend. Even in my fiction writing, my heroines live out my fears (apologies to my literary characters). They lose things that wake me up at night in cold sweats, heart pounding, thanking Gods it was only a dream, reassuring myself everything is alright by kissing my babies as they slumber. Then kissing them again.

I've let a lot of my life be dictated by fear. I've let the actions of others, those that have abused my trust and my love, perverting it for their gain, mar my life. I don't much care for it. It's hard to work through but I'm trying. I helplessly watch those drops plop away from me as the days go by hoping maybe this day my fear will subside enough that I would dream again without limit. Maybe I'd break through that ceiling of fear I constructed when I finally reached growing up. Maybe it'll be today. Hopefully, it'll be tomorrow.