When I’m done, I’m done. And I believe I’m done here.
The Great Sphinx is more than 4,500 years old. He rests in the dust of work and hardship kicked up by the sandstorms of irrelevance. Today, right now, you or I can go stand at his feet because he has stayed put for that long. Many people stood before the Great Sphinx today, and more will stand before him tomorrow solely because he will be there another day still.
Including the Great Sphinx, I admire things with longevity. A 40-year marriage, a 30-year company career, a 7-month tube of mascara. These things are easy to admire because, in maintaining themselves, they have tamed time. From the first day through the improbable tally of days following, these things folded time into their identity, making a steady partner of the most slippery trespasser.
As much as I admire him, however, the Great Sphinx is a warning. At some point, he lost himself entirely in his accord with time and is now its slave, a fancy stone clock. He is useless and no one remembers his use. He keeps watch over a land that has changed and changed around him in ways that are and are not for the better, having nothing to do with any of it. I love the Great Sphinx, but I don’t want to be like him. He was resilient to become stale.
Ten years ago, my husband and I moved into our fifth floor walk-up during a blizzard. In a few days, we will move out under a spring sun. Like the Great Sphinx, I could stay where people expect to find me because that is where they found me last. But the sandstorms are strong, and they have been chipping away at me.
I am not the Great Sphinx, I will not be here tomorrow, so today I am a ghost. I wipe down a kitchen counter I picked in a Newark granite warehouse yard. I switch off lights in a bedroom where I have slept, read, cried. I hang my towel on a hook in the bathroom that was there when I arrived. The step I regularly trip on and the cabinets I can’t reach without a stepstool will be here, exactly where they are, but I will not be and so neither will their trouble. In town, I cash in my loyalty for a free coffee, a free bubble tea with cards I will no longer collect. I wave hello to local acquaintances who recognize me and will not realize I am gone. My library card expired. All that will remain of these things is my memory of them, and one day that too will be gone.
I have not defeated time, it is not my ally. Neither am I time’s slave or memorial. I am hidden in it. I ride time like a supersonic jet. I use it to land in a new place, where I will be for a while. I promise visiting me there will be special and worthwhile because one day I will be somewhere else still. My orange cat’s name is Sphinx, and he is going too. We hope to see you there.