The last time.

There are phrases I read that touch me so much that I earmark the page, keep the book close at hand to turn back to when the need to see those exact words again becomes pressing. This is one of them (from here):

It would not do to say so outright, but they both knew that this was the last time. Then again, presumably for everyone there came a point that you did everything for the last time. Tie your shoes. Look at your watch.

The reason that this excerpt meant so much to me is the same as why this post from Stirrup Queens, "Living In a World of Last Times," struck me. This is the world I live in. First times don't really touch me. Last ones – and also the fear that this could be the last one – do.

Any time could be the last time; you never know. For every first, there is a last; there are endings and changes that are bound to come, as they always do. I'm very aware of this, perhaps too much, and the weight of that acknowledgment is sometimes too much to bear. After all, it's difficult to enjoy a last time, or even a perceived, feared last time, if you spend it wiping away tears over it being just that – although, on the other hand, that recognition allows a heightened appreciation of those moments that might have been absent without it.

I'm at the end of the seven weeks I'll have spent with my family. As long as seven weeks is (and, admittedly, sometimes feels ...), it also seems like it's never enough, like time is slipping away more quickly than I can catch it. During these seven weeks, this could be the last time has been running through my head, as it always does, for situations and during events both meaningful as well as insignificant, or those that would be insignificant if not for the meaning I impart to them, meaning heightened by the fear that, indeed, this could be the last time.

This is not unusual for me, but the distance between us sharpens the trepidation, and even if the future shows me that this time wasn't actually the last time, it will remain the last time for a long time. I don't know when we'll be here next, although I am certain that change is coming, endings are arriving, and nothing will ever be exactly the same again.

One such change (assuming "could" to be "will" and "if" to be "when") is that of my parents knowing me only as their own child. Next time I'm here, I'll have my own child. Although it's a blessing, one that we are all looking foward to so very much, and it will bring with it many future first times to share delightedly with baby and its faraway grandparents, right now, as these final moments tick away, all I can think of is the lastness that this new beginning has created.