The Times They are A-Changin’: The Duality of Heartbreak and Beauty

It’s not often you hear Bob Dylan playing at a brunch spot in Mexico at 7:45 in the morning. And if I was a person who believed in signs and coincidences, I might have heard The Times They are A-Changin’ and felt like the Universe was giving me a wink since I had just finished dropping the kids off for their first day of school after 18 months of straight being home with me. The thing is… I am (lol);  I am someone who believes in signs so I don’t think this was a coincidence but the Universe nudging me to remember that the beauty of life is the same thing that makes it heartbreaking: the passing of time.

Listen to Bob Dylan's The Times They are A-Changin'

The fact that time passes means you’re alive (what a thing to celebrate, right?!) but with it comes the emotional nostalgia (aka warfare to my heart). I love and celebrate life with zest but the duality of that is that I also love and grieve with passion. Maybe you can relate?

My heart literally hurts when I think of the kids getting older. The times that have passed that we’ll never get back. I look at a picture of just a few years ago… who are those babies? A four and a five year old now, still, only eight and nine and they’ve changed completely. My son’s baby face has given way to a real boy and seems to be losing teeth on the daily. Daughter is as tall as some of my friends and she’s wearing deodorant for Pedro’s sake.

And it isn’t just kids.

It’s any moment in time when it was easy to fully embrace the wholeness of life, the times you could drink up the fullness with ease. Those moments you wish you could stop dead in their tracks. Bottle up. Keep in a still frame in your mind. Stay golden, Ponyboy and all of that.

But life happens in fleeting moments. Good things (and bad) don’t stay forever. Beautiful and heartbreaking, remember?

I left the kids at their school entrance and walked across the street. They were with their dad. They didn’t look back and I was glad they didn’t. They’re getting older and after a year and a half of neeeeeeeeding me at every turn, it’s time to look to themselves for some answers. “Your daughters and sons are beyond your command” says Dylan and I know he’s right.

My mom says it often too, “Our job is to raise you but you aren’t ours. It’s egotistical to think you are.”

I watched them walk in from across the street and in that moment I held so much gratitude for the time we got together–pandemic taketh and pandemic giveth. I walked away ready for them to start a new year

…and I only cried a little.

Drink it up, friends. The Times They are A-Changin’ but we have one very short existence to love, to laugh, to grieve, to open our arms wide, to hold them tight around our people–to feel it all.

Drink it up, the whole thing, and savor it.

P.S. When the past punches you in the heart and No life is an Instagram life