If you had a superpower, what would it be? Would you teleport around the world or soar across the sky? As a kid, I always said I wanted the ability to control the weather – who would not want to create inclement conditions that lead to endless days off school? But if you asked me that question now, I would choose the ability to control time without hesitation. 

There are so many moments in my life that I wish I could experience again. In fact, I genuinely believe that I would be perfectly content to be stuck in a never-ending time loop of 2024.

2024 was the best-worst year of my life. I interned at the Farm Show for the first time, studied abroad in Australia, jumped out of an airplane in New Zealand, spent the summer at the races – the list is endless.  

But then, at the end of the year, my dad passed away. It still does not feel real. 

I would give anything to go back and live through 2024 – the good and the bad – if only to see him one last time. 

I want to receive his humorous texts while I intern at the Farm Show, hug him before I get on the plane to Australia, hear his laugh when I tell him I just went skydiving and sit by his side at a racetrack listening to him curse when his favorite driver does not win. 

But life just does not work that way. Once a moment has passed, there is no going back. 

I have said it before – time is a thief. Time whisks away the innocence of your childhood before you realize it is gone. Time steals everything you hold dear, leaving you to desperately cling to fractured memories. And eventually, your time will simply just run out.  

But time is also a gift. Life is special because our time is fleeting. Would a moment still be meaningful if you experienced it a thousand times? 

As I stand on the precipice of becoming another year older, I feel like I spend more time grieving the past and fearing the future than actually enjoying the present.

While I do not yet have a solution to this affliction, I am learning to appreciate how lucky I am to experience things that make me mourn the passage of time so deeply. And I often wonder what I did to deserve the time I got in the first place. 

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