Stored memories
play inside my mind --
a movie on fast forward
I cannot pause or rewind.

A little girl holding tightly
onto the calloused hand
of her father
walking along the shoreline,
heads bowed,
selecting only
the finest seashells
for their collection.

Fast Forward --
friends -- good and bad.
Some taught morals,
others led me astray.
Few remained
through life's transitions.

Fast Forward --
a first car, paint chipping
transmission leaking,
holes in the floorboards…
best car ever.

Fast Forward --
a white gown of silk and lace,
a handsome man,
spoken promises.

Fast Forward --
a house
to be made into a home
where the porch light
will be on at night
like the homes
I had driven past, wondering
what it would be like
to live inside.

Fast Forward --
a tiny daughter
peacefully dreaming in my arms.
Overcome with new feelings
of what matters.
The whole world
is a different place to me now.

Fast Forward --
once again
holding the calloused hand
I held as a child,
recalling together the seashells
we had carefully
lifted from the sand
as we say goodbye forever.

Fast Forward --
aging in milestones, marked by decades.
Vanity replaced with reality;
impatience replaced with understanding;
misperceptions remedied by experience.

Life's questions being answered
by time itself.

Fast Forward --
to now
where I have learned
to live inside the present…

to experience, to feel,
to inhabit the moments
while they happen,
when they happen
before their time is lost to
Fast Forward.

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© Linda Ellis. All rights reserved.