Thump. My front door swings open, and a work bag is tossed on the ground.

“Daddy!!” I squeal. I wrap my arms around his waist that towers above my pigtails. I bury my tiny head into his shirt, and my laugh bubbles in the air.

I can’t remember the last time that happened. I wish I did.

Now, things are different.

These are my parents. They sneak behind me and my friends, hide behind trees, videotape us chatting and giggling. I’ll turn around and see them taking pictures and recording. I’ll tell them to stop, furiously gritting my teeth, and they’ll say, “You’ll thank me when you’re fourty.” Still, I snatch the camcorder from their hands and shut it off.

Stop. Stop reading. Ask yourself now, right now, this exact second: What have my mother and father done for me? Sometimes I hurt people because I listen to myself and I don’t understand the other side. This is a question that would save me some regrets.

Time is like a train. It whizzes by you and slows down just enough to whisper, “I’m not waiting. I’m moving forward, and even if I’m going too fast for you to see me or realize how close I am to the finish, I’m not waiting.” Time is correct. Days cannot be treated like your math notebook, where you rip out pages, scribble some equations or doodle hearts in the margins, then accidentally abandon it in math class. It will fall to the ground, get trampled over, crammed in a barrel, hauled to the dump, burned, lost, then forgotten.

Every day, my dad tells me to make a journal. He says he doesn’t remember anything from when he was thirteen, so when he discovers artwork and essays from his childhood, his face lights up. Sometimes, I picture my fourty-year-old self reading a journal from when I was a teenager. Maybe I should write one.

Nothing in life is predictable. My dad always tells me, “You never know when it will be the last time doing something.” For the time being, I will treat every day like it’s the last time. I will resist temptation to argue about the little things, because when I am fourty years old, I would’ve wanted the memories with my parents to bring tears of joy, not regret. The next time I want to scold my parents for being “embarrassing” or “annoying”, I’ll bite my tongue and remember that they comfort me, feed me every day, give me a roof to sleep under, and are the reason I am alive.

I just heard my dad come home. I heard the familiar banging of his feet and his bag thudding on the floor. He just said, “Where’s Sydney? She doesn’t come running to meet me anymore.” And now I’m telling him, “Wait. I’m doing something.” I watch as he walks out of the room. I want to come talk to you, Dad…But he can’t hear these thoughts in my head, and I have important work to do, and time can’t stop for these little things, and life goes on.

I try to memorize the feeling of my Dad coming home. I try to capture what it looks like to be at home with my whole family. I memorize each of them - my mom, dad, brother, and sister - because nobody knows when it will be the last time. When we are busy growing up, we forget they are growing old. As crazy as this sounds, one day when you’re old, you’ll wish more than anything that you could become young again.

So don’t try to rush time. It already is.