What If You’re Not Old… You’re Just Spring?
- Carol McCormick
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Lately, at gatherings, I’ve noticed something curious. I’m the oldest person in the room.
Now, I could clutch my pearls, check my pulse, and start Googling “good orthopedic shoes”… or, I could ask a different question:
What if I’m not “older”… what if I’m just… Spring?
What if, instead of counting years like rings on a tree, I thought of myself as a season?
A season of blooming ideas, muddy beginnings, unexpected color, and the occasional emotional rainstorm.
Would that permit me to:
Be more childlike?
Live more in the moment?
Laugh louder, risk more, create more?
I suspect the answer is yes.
Here’s where it gets deliciously strange: Time, as we live it, is something humans made up.
I know. That sounds like the kind of thing you say right before you forget what day it is and eat ice cream for breakfast. But truly, time is a shared agreement.
Nature gives us change, not labels. The Earth spins. The sun rises. Seasons shift. Your coffee or tea cools at a tragically predictable rate. But nowhere in the universe does a voice announce: “Attention everyone, it is now 3:00 PM. Kindly panic.”
We Made This Up (And It Stuck)
Humans, being clever and occasionally chaotic, decided to organize all this change:
A day = one spin of the Earth
A year = one trip around the sun
Hours, minutes, seconds = tiny slices we invented so we wouldn’t all just yell, “Meet me… later!”
And somehow, we all agreed: 60 minutes in an hour (why 60? because apparently 59 wasn’t enough and 61 felt excessive). 7 days in a week.
Time works not because it’s absolute, but because we all agreed to play along.
The Agreement That Runs the World
If we agree that “Noon” is when the sun is roughly overhead, and “The meeting starts at 2:00,” then things happen: Trains run. Schools open. Stories begin on cue.
Without that agreement, we’d all be standing around saying, “I thought you meant the other afternoon.”
Different cultures have told time differently. Some followed the moon instead of the sun.
Weeks haven’t always been seven days. Time zones? Entirely human decisions (with a splash of politics and a dash of “this seemed like a good idea at the time”)
Even science joins the mischief.
Physics tells us time isn’t perfectly steady—it can stretch and bend depending on motion and gravity.
The Pressure Problem
And yet…We walk around feeling chased by time, thinking: “There’s not enough time.”
“I’m running out of time.” “I don’t have time to turn this boat around.”
We talk about deadlines instead of something far more hopeful…Birthlines.
Moments where something new could begin.
Back to Spring
So what if we loosened our grip? What if, just a little, we stepped out of the pressure of the clock and into the Present Moment? What if life isn’t a countdown…but an unfolding?
What if you’re not late…you’re just blooming on your own schedule?
A Gentle Experiment
Today, try this: Ignore the clock for a moment (don’t panic—just a moment). Notice what is actually happening:
Light shifting
Breath moving
A thought arriving
A laugh bubbling up
That’s real. That’s life without labels.
Maybe it’s time, ironically, to rethink time. To trade urgency for curiosity. Scarcity of possibilities. Deadlines for birthlines. To live, not by the ticking of the clock…but by the rhythm of being alive.
And if you find yourself the oldest person in the room?
Smile. You might just be Spring.
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