Make do.

In case you don’t know and you’re into useless information, I was tying my shoe the other day and suddenly the aglet popped off. What’s an aglet you say? It’s that tiny little plastic sheath at the end of the shoelace that prevents the string from fraying. Seems insignificant, doesn’t it? Some people may not even notice. But no. Aglets mean much. There’s no way to get that miniature contraption back onto a shoelace. Without the aglet, a shoelace has only so much time left.

It may seem ridiculous to some that this event could even be categorized as an event; one couldn’t be blamed for mentioning the whole thing in parentheses. I understand that. But for a tiny moment, at my backdoor one morning before work, the whole experience felt like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Why? Because I don’t need another reminder of how fleeting things are; I know I don’t know how much time I have left. No one does.

With the morning sun streaming in on a windy autumn day just before the workday begins, it’s strange to think about the end of something. Sunrises shouldn’t be like that. Nor sunsets. Yet sometimes that idea creeps into my heart like those autumn leaves rush in before I can close the door at the end of day in my vain attempt to keep change on the other side of the door. Sigh.

And yet, my string remains mostly unfrayed. It may not be the same as it once was but so far, something is holding it together. It suffices. My shoes still walk me where I need to go every day. So far. That little aglet is teaching me that sometimes there’s no correcting what went wrong; we just have to tie our shoes and keep going. Make do with unfairness. Make do with time, whatever that means. Make do.