On my 40th birthday I wrote that until you turn 40 you really cannot comprehend how brief a period of time 10 years is.

I also wrote that if the next 20 years were to fly by as fast as the previous 20 – and I suspected they would fly even faster – in the blink of an eye I’d be an old man.

Turns out I was right … well, partially.

I blinked and 20 years did fly by. Tomorrow I turn 60.

I don’t, however, consider myself old. Or feel that way.

One of the reasons is the number of 90-year-olds I know – one in particular – who don’t look or act old. Their attitude and behavior tells me I still have a long way to go. They also make me feel like a kid, which is nice.

In a column at 40 I addressed young people telling them something I’ve continued to tell young people ever since. I told them the longest period in anyone’s life is between the ages of 18 and 21. You’re not a kid any more, but you’re still not considered an adult.

They already knew that. But be careful, I cautioned, because here’s how life goes:

You turn 21 and you go out and get drunk.

The next morning you wake up, and you’re hung over.

The next morning you wake up, and you’re 30.

No one grasps that until it happens. And, trust me, it always happens.

Contemplating the speed of time, at 40 I likened a lifetime of 80 years – if we’re that lucky – to having 80 bucks in your pocket in the form of eight 10-dollar bills. It’s not much.

At 40, I already had half of mine spent.

At 60 … well, you can do the math.

Right now, I’m wondering what my nonagenarian friends are thinking. Well, I see them as benefiting from a stroke of luck my buddies and I call “finding a rusty five.”

That’s when you put on last year’s winter coat, stick your hand in the pocket and discover a five dollar bill you didn’t know was there. As long as you keep coming up with “rusty fives” you can stretch that 80-buck lifetime pretty far.

Of course, rusty fives notwithstanding, looking at life as only eight 10-dollar bills, or eight 10-year blocks of time, can be scary. So don’t look it at that way.

Instead of focusing on decades, of which we get merely eight, focus on moments, of which we get millions.

Moments exist outside of time. A moment has no past and no future. It has only now. And now is where we need to do our living.

I drive my poor wife crazy when I tell her the reason I never wear a watch is that I always know what time it is: it’s always now.

She thinks I’m just trying to be clever, but I’m not. I’ve worked hard to learn to live in the now. It takes concentration.

But if you can learn to do it – to always be completely absorbed in the moment – you can achieve a state that, to me, becomes Heaven on Earth. It’s the state of making time disappear.

Long ago I realized that I am at my utmost happiness when time disappears. I discovered it would happen when I was rocking one of my babies to sleep, or completely engrossed in a book or movie, or immersed in an interesting conversation, or even writing a newspaper column.

I’d happen to glance at a clock and be shocked to discover hours had passed without my comprehending it.

I also realized long ago that I am never more aware of time than when I am at my worst.

Nothing slows the hands of a clock like a toothache or, worse, a heart ache. Especially in the middle of the night.

The difference, I’ve concluded, is love.

Love is what makes time disappear – moments of pure, complete, unquestioning love.

Henry Van Dyke put it much better than I:

Time is

Too slow for those who wait,

Too swift for those who fear,

Too long for those who grieve,

Too short for those who rejoice,

But for those who love

Time is not.

That’s why I say making time disappear is a glimpse of Heaven.

Every religion refers to God as love. If indeed ‘for those who love, time is not’ then returning to God, joining Him in Heaven, means making time disappear once and for all.

I say hallelujah!

Because, while I have no idea if they serve beer in Heaven, I’m pretty sure they have no alarm clocks.

But beer would be a nice touch.

About the Author

Ed Ackerman is the editor of the Pittston Sunday Dispatch. He can be reached at 602-0175.

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