Is time ever really on our side?

Is time ever really on our side? I had to renew my driver's license on Friday, and the concept of time has been on my mind since then. My new license will not expire until December 31, 2014-on my 34th birthday. I pondered this thought the whole drive home...where will I be five years from now? Will I be married? Will I have any children? Where will I be working? Will I be living out my dream of residing in New York City? All of these thoughts and more have been forefront in my mind since my time at the DMV two days ago.

In life, it seems like time is never on our side. When we are little, we want to be older. Once we are older, we want to be (or at least look) younger. I remember being 15 and thinking that my 16th birthday would never come. The song "Long December" by Counting Crows epitomized my seemingly endless wait for my birthday to arrive, so I could finally get my driver's license. Now, the 31st of December seems to arrive at an increasingly quickening pace each year.

While I look forward to what the future brings, sometimes I wish that I could pause time and stay at 28 for the rest of my life. Or, at the very least, I wish that I could always have an extra five minutes, so that I wasn't perpetually running five minutes late. However, it seems that the young will always want to be older, and the older will wish they were younger. Little girls will want to cast their dolls aside for makeup and boys, and adult women will apply their eye cream, face tightening serum, and other anti-aging products in haste. I guess the secret is finding contentment regardless of what stage you are in life. For now, I relish the day when time will be on my side.