Unwritten Letter #3

To Time Itself

Time isn’t something we can hold,
but it is something we can hear.

What if we paused long enough to listen back?

“Not anymore,” said Time.
“I gave plenty—
and you took mine.”

You were quiet.
You didn’t yell.
Just a tick—a sound barely heard in all the noise.

We noticed it.
We knew the depth of it.
But we didn’t let it speak the way it should have.
We thought you’d always give us more—until you didn’t.

We traded you for thoughts of the past and worries about the future—
missing what you were the whole time: a gift.

The present is never loud.
It’s always the noise that drowns it out—
the rushing, the traffic, the mental running toward what we think matters.

But where are we all trying to get so fast?
And what are we all trying to get back so badly?

Time was never meant to be taken for granted.
Not as a healer.
Not as a genie.
Not as a pause button.

We treat it like an answer—
Expect it to slow down when life gets good,
or speed up when it doesn’t.
We blame it when we’re hurting.

But time isn’t doing anything to us.
It just moves.
It just is.

Healing takes more than time.
It takes work.
It takes truth.
And sometimes—
it takes something greater than both.

So what do we do now?

What if we all just slowed down—just for a moment?

Sixty seconds.
Sixty ticks on a clock.

Look around.
What do you see?
What do you hear?
What do you smell?
What’s real right now that you’ll never get back?

Give yourself the gift of sixty seconds.
Give anyone near you the gift of sixty seconds.

Yes, there will be more moments.
But these sixty?

You’ll never have them again.

The present is quiet. So, listen before you miss it.

—Angela
the voice beneath Daughter, Unwritten.