Through The Fingers

 Have you ever tried to pick up a handful of sand, gravel, salt, sugar, or anything that is very tiny in its individual form? Have you ever successfully picked up every last grain, morsel, piece? No no, I mean every single bit? The answer is no, because some of it just slips through the cracks of the fingers since the hand is not one singular piece such as a scoop or a spoon.

For some reason, I'm just realizing how much time has been slipping through my hands as if it were sand. That somehow the days blur together, the weeks become repetitive (to a certain extent) and next thing I know whole months pass, or even as I think about it, a whole year passes without much thought. I honestly cannot really remember all too much about 2020.

I was looking at the calendar and I noticed that it's already February 18th. That means that this month is only 10 days away from ending already, and it feels like it was just yesterday that we were saying "wow it's February already" and then just the day before that (as it feels) that we were saying, "Happy New Year". The effect compounds when I realize it's been longer than 1 year since I last stepped foot on Liberty's campus, and even longer since I was last there as a student. Side note, I am half-considering going back to Liberty to finish a bachelor's once I complete my time at community college now. But then I have other logistics to consider such as do I want to go that far for school again, and if I do, do I want to submit myself to the rules of the residential life?

As February marches onwards towards ending sooner rather than later (as we're greater than halfway through), it leads me to remembering how it was just about a year ago that there was no such thing as the pandemic, at least not in the United States. That there was freedom in not having to abide by social distancing or face covering/mask wearing (or double mask wearing for some people). And then I begin to wonder about how things were different a year ago even on this blog.

Without getting too caught in the heaviness that was February 2020 and this blog, I will note that I did write 69 posts (nice) in the month. Granted the month did have 29 days being a leap year, but still that is a lot of posts. I was going through a lot, and I apparently wrote a lot and spent a lot of my time on the blog to cope and articulate my thoughts and my feelings. That's an average of 2.37 posts per day. What could I possibly have had to write so many individual posts about?

So as to move on from that, a different point I had noticed was that it was supposed to be like a "hurrah" that I celebrated my 21st last year, as 21 marks the legal drinking age and most Americans live it up (I certainly did, even at home by getting myself 6 shots deep in 40 minutes with lunch mixed in there somewhere). But then it just feels like that was a lifetime ago, and while it's still 5 months out, I'm already facing the fact that I'll be 22 soon enough. I don't feel my age, and I certainly don't act my age.

Or even the other night, we were re-watching a vlog that my brother made of our 2017 family vacation to Phoenix, Arizona as a big trip to celebrate my graduation of high school. It was to be grand and joyous (which is definitely was) but that feels like an eternity ago if just 7 months was a lifetime. I mean sure that means we are already coming up on 4 years since that trip, but where did those years go? On top of that, back then I had barely any ability to grow facial hair (although I guess I'm not too much better off nowadays, but I got the "chinstrap" some right below the lip on the chin, and a moustache of sorts growing, which is way more than the few rogue strands over the corners of my mouth that I could have had back then) and so the whole vlog was of me with a clean-shaven face. I also had one of my older hairstyles that I have since phased out by 2 styles now (well maybe 1 one style as I got an undercut or whatever, and now I've still got that same undercut, but I push the hair backwards as opposed to a side part). I've also changed my glasses so the frames probably add to the look, but my family members say that in the vlog I look 10 years younger. I'll have to add some pics side by side for comparison:

Okay so the top one is before I started styling the hair back, the mid one is an older picture but with the clean shaven face, and this last one is just a quick selfie I grabbed now which doesn't exactly show the full facial hair, hence why I have that first one from January 4th.

I do know that when the comment was made that I look 10 years younger without the facial hair that I made a joke about how Jersey Mike's (my place of work in case you didn't know) had changed me over the past year that I've worked, especially so with how I got thrown in and fast-tracked to shift leader and opening 33.52% of the total openings that were available in the first year of the store's existence. While that percentage is just barely above one third, things to note are that I didn't start opening until 4 months down the pipeline, and that there were at least 6 different people who have done openings, so even if it were an even split of openings (which it wouldn't seeing as 2 of them are the managing staff) that'd be 11.08% each. So I take the cake of most opens by a large margin.

Yeah I get it that I should be grateful for my job and how it's helped to fill a lot of the time over the past year, as well as give me some money to play with and mostly to start saving for my future as I've never really held a job down aside from the infrequent summers that I would work for my dad (so I'd be rich in the sense that I had everything provided such as clothes, phone, a car to use, etc.) but I would be broke in the sense that I didn't have any money of my own to buy whatever I wanted.

I suppose after all this long-windedness, I'm trying to say that time has flown by way faster than I could've imagined. That I'll be taking another step into my 20's, and another step towards adulthood. That I'll be reattempting to obtain a degree and find a better living for myself as I don't see myself working in foodservice forever. It's just crazy how long it has been since some things have happened. This is why I really want to get on top of my quoting of enjoying every moment since you never know when the good times happen. You only know when the good times are the good times because they have passed and there's a small, rough patch that makes you yearn to go back.