Nipul Chokshi💯

WARNING: Emotional post (but worth reading or bookmarking for later). Time is cruel. But that cruelty carries the seeds of beauty. Last weekend, my family and I made our annual pilgrimage to a small community in northwest Connecticut. We started going when I was 18 months old. I met my two best friends there. I caught my first fish there. I had my first crush there. But perhaps most importantly, I played my first game of catch there. As I remember it, I was probably about five years old. My dad had a softball and a couple of old baseball gloves. And there, in the tall, overgrown grass, we threw the ball back and forth. As the years wore on, I got bigger and the ball started moving faster. We played catch damn near every single day when I was a kid. It didn't really matter what time of year or what time of day. We'd play catch in the snow in January. In the early morning light before school. In the dim light of the evenings when he got home from work. In high school, when I started getting college scholarship offers, we played catch. While on the team at Stanford, when my family went on vacation, we played catch. But then, my career ended. And with it, our game of catch. Time is a funny thing. Usually, it goes unnoticed. It exists, but not really. Only in some abstract sense. It flows under the surface. Adjacent to your reality, but not exactly in it. The routines of life make it go faster. You settle into patterns. Paths with gravity. You take a job. You establish a place. You start a family. The days start blending together. They become weeks, months, years, even decades. But then, something breaks. There's some collision. Suddenly, time gets thrust to the surface. Time goes unnoticed, until it's the only thing you notice. I've felt that most painfully with my parents. My dad is 70 now. In some ways, that 70-year-old version feels like a stranger to me. I think the image we have of our parents never really changes from the one we establish as kids. I still see my dad as the young, vibrant, athletic young man. The one who could hit the ball farther than anyone I knew. The one who could toss me up on his shoulders in a flash. The one who could beat me in a race (but usually let me win). I still see that young dad in his eyes, in his energy, in his curiosity for life. In some painful sense, I imagine the 70-year-old version feels like a stranger to him, too. Time is cruel. But that cruelty carries the seeds of beauty. The most beautiful things in life are made beautiful by their impermanence. So, what are we to do about all of this? Perhaps we must simply give in to time. Embrace its unending, relentless flow. Live as we are. Do as we can. But what if, in truth, we have a bit more power than that? What if it's possible, in some imperfect, impermanent way, to control time? To bend time and space. To really be there. To really feel it. To embrace it, without giving in to it. To live as we want. To do as we dream. That theory is what brings me back to last Sunday, when I felt compelled to unlock one of the old cabinets in my parent's cottage. It was a cabinet that, when opened, had the feel of a time capsule. Dust and cobwebs everywhere. A musty smell. Like reaching into it was reaching back in time. I pulled out my old baseball glove. And my dad's old catcher's mitt. I walked outside, where I found my dad playing with his grandsons on the swings. I held up the two gloves, a smile across my face. "Hey, Dad, wanna have a catch?" I smiled. He smiled. We walked side by side out onto the field. And there, in the tall, overgrown grass, we threw the ball back and forth. As we did, something amazing happened. Time melted away. 30 years disappeared. He wasn't 70. I wasn't 35. I was that little boy again. And he was my young dad. Just playing catch for no purpose at all. It was just a game of catch. But it was so much more.