Time Isn’t Real

I've said this approximately a thousand times before, and I stand by it.

It feels like just yesterday I was sitting down to choose my word for the year. THRIVING. I was setting goals, making plans, dreaming about what 2026 might look like, and wondering where I'd be by the end of it. And somehow, here we are. October.

These next three months are my absolute favorite time of the year. The weather starts changing. The mornings get cooler. The holidays start creeping closer. There are traditions and family and food and Christmas music—which I realize some of you believe has an appropriate starting date, and you are entitled to be wrong. HA! There's just something about October through December that makes me happy.

And this year, it seems to be moving especially fast.

The first quarter of the school year is already over, which is ridiculous because I'm fairly certain school started about seventeen minutes ago. I'm heading into Fall Break this week. Only one week, mind you, while many other districts get two, but I'm not bitter.

Okay, I'm a little bitter. But hey, I'll take what I can get. HA!

Once Fall Break is over, it's basically a sprint. We get The Best Christmas Pageant Ever ready to perform the first week of November. Then we work on our One Act for ThesFest in the middle of the month. Then Thanksgiving arrives. Then there are only a few short weeks until the end of the semester, Christmas comes, and suddenly we're standing at another starting line.

See? Time isn't real.

I have further evidence.

Sometimes I'll be teaching a class and everything is clicking. The students are engaged. I'm engaged. We're laughing. We're learning. Something wonderful is happening in the room, and it feels like we've been together for maybe seven minutes. Then the bell rings and everybody groans, "Already?!" Apparently.

Other days I can teach that exact same class and something is just…off. I've taught the lesson. I've used every activity I prepared. I've checked the clock certain that class must be nearly over, only to discover there are still twenty minutes left.

TWENTY MINUTES.

How?!

Same classroom. Same bell schedule. Same number of minutes. Completely different laws of physics.

Time isn't real.

Vacation proves it too. The weeks leading up to a trip take approximately fourteen years. You count the days. You make the plans. You pack. You wait. You finally arrive at your destination, hit the ground running, try to see all the people and visit all the places and eat all the food—and approximately twelve minutes later you're sitting at the airport waiting for your flight home thinking, Where did the week go?

Exactly.

Which is why I'm already a little suspicious of this Fall Break.

I know myself well enough to know that I could wake up tomorrow morning and suddenly it will be Sunday night and I'll be wondering what happened to the week I was so excited about. So I'm trying something this week.

I'm going to pay attention.

I'm going to try to be present instead of immediately looking toward whatever comes next. I'm going to appreciate the downtime. I'm going to let myself rest. I'm going to give my mind, body, spirit, and extremely depleted social battery a chance to recharge before I jump back into the beautiful insanity of finishing a semester in educational theatre.

Because this particular stretch of time feels especially sacred to me.

My son Max has a birthday this month, and this is his last full month of just being my little man—which is hilarious because he's taller than I am, stronger than I am, and there is absolutely nothing "little" about him anymore.

That's kind of the problem.

When did that happen?

Next month, the day before Thanksgiving, he begins his mission from home with Home MTC. Then on December 2, he gets on a plane and leaves for Sierra Leone, West Africa, where he'll spend the next two years.

My head knows this. My heart has apparently declined to process the paperwork.

I'm not ready.

There. I said it. And I'm not sorry about it either. I have some pretty big feelings about this one.

His sister Maggie has already been gone for six months, serving her mission in Utah. Six months that have somehow flown by and crawled along at exactly the same time. Again: time isn't real.

I miss her terribly. Mondays have become one of my favorite days because that's when I get to talk to her. I get to hear about what she's doing, who she's meeting, what she's learning, what she's struggling with, and all the ways she's growing. Watching her thrive has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.

Her mission isn't always easy. She has challenges. She has hard days. She has things she's had to work through and overcome. And then I get to watch her do it. I get to watch this person I helped raise encounter something difficult, figure out what she's made of, lean into her faith, get back up, keep going, and somehow become even more herself.

That's the dad win.

I am so freakin' proud of her.

And now Max is right on her heels, which means for a while, two of my kids will be gone serving missions at the same time.

I don't like it.

There. I said that too.

I'm trying. I'm working on it. I'm hoping for the best. I know they're doing what they want to do. They're serving the Lord. They're bringing Christ to other people. They're learning and growing and having experiences that will shape the rest of their lives. I'm happy for them. I'm proud of them. I want them to go and have these experiences.

AND—

I'm their dad.

And I'm going to miss them.

Apparently I've reached the stage of parenting where I actually like my kids. HA! Nobody warned me about this. They're funny. They're interesting. They're becoming these remarkable adults with their own opinions and dreams and lives, and I genuinely enjoy having them around.

And now they have the audacity to grow up.

Rude.

They were just babies.

I know every parent says that, but they were. I can still see them that way if I let myself. Little hands. Little voices. Little bodies I could pick up and carry. Somehow, while I was busy doing all the ordinary things required to raise them—school and homework and rehearsals and dinners and birthdays and Christmases and arguments and family vacations—they grew up.

One has already walked out the door into her own life. Another is getting ready.

For a little while, Van Patten Party of Five becomes Van Patten Party of Three.

And my dad heart isn't quite ready for that.

Maybe that's why this Fall Break feels a little different. I don't just want a week off. I want to notice it.

I want to notice October. I want to notice the mornings getting cooler and the days getting shorter. I want to notice my family. I want to notice Max still being here. I want to enjoy the phone calls with Maggie instead of spending them thinking about how much I wish she were home. I want to rest without feeling guilty about resting.

I want to stop looking so far ahead that I miss what's happening right now.

Because Christmas is coming. The end of the semester is coming. Max leaving is coming. 2027 is coming. All of it will arrive whether I'm ready for it or not, and I can't make any of it slow down.

But maybe I can pay attention while it's happening.

That's really the strange thing about time. The moments we desperately want to hurry seem to crawl, while the ones we'd give anything to keep seem to disappear. Maybe that's why being present matters so much.

We don't get to control how quickly a season passes. We only get to decide whether we're actually there for it.

So that's my goal this week. Not productivity. Not checking off another giant list. Not figuring out the rest of my life. Just being here. Resting. Writing. Spending time with my people. Enjoying my favorite season of the year.

Letting October be October before I start asking it to become November.

Because it'll happen soon enough.

Probably in about seventeen minutes.

Time isn't real, after all.

But this moment is.

And I don't want to miss it.