The Greatest Magic of All

Time is a terrible enemy to have. I didn't use to think of it that way; I always looked forward to the next goal or milestone. I wanted to watch my girls grow up, and grow old with Steve. I was never afraid of getting old or dying. I'm still not. I just wish that I was still allowed to do the "grow old" part.

If you know me, you know I love tabletop role-playing games. One of my favourite lines from my favourite online comedy gamemaster (what a thing to have), Brennan Lee Mulligan, is:

Never forget that the greatest magic of all is Chronomancy; 

the magic of time.  

Source: bethanydrawsart

It was played for laughs, since the audience was obviously expecting for Brennan to say "friendship" or "love" -- the obvious, cliché -- but it did make me think that, yeah, the power to control time would be pretty fucking cool. 

Especially now, I wish I could be a master of chronomancy, turn back time, and relive that year 3-to-4-year period in my life when everything was perfect. I was happy in my family life, work life, and social life. Everything was as perfect as it could get. I achieved everything I had worked and hoped for my whole life; and then cancer stole it from me. All of it.

The thing about having known true happiness and perfection is that when it's taken away and you realize you can never have it back again, you lose a part of your soul. Then that hole is filled in with nothing but unshakeable grief.

So if I were a chronomancer, I would turn the clock back to 2018 and I'd relive it in all of its perfect, loving glory. And then I would rewind it again, and again, and again, and again. I'd live in that bottle of time forever and never get tired of the perfection within.

A euphorically happy messy morning with my girls in 2021.