I Found a Time Machine Yesterday

I found a time machine yesterday.

I hopped inside and set the dial as far back as it would go,
which was only as far as the day I was born,
And where I went first.

I saw my mother and father and three sisters rejoicing at the birth of a boy.
(At last a boy!) A family of six, with four kids under 8.
What were they thinking?

I set the dial ahead to 1969, when I was just starting school,
And our first year in Toronto (North York really).
The first times I myself remember, always happy and carefree.

Next I went to 1977, my first summer away at camp.
Amazing times, blissfully happy times of enormous growth,
With more friends than I could count and a new taste of freedom.

On to the day at university when I met my wife.
No, not that day exactly - the one where we walked for hours in the snow holding hands.
So happy to have found someone, and so ignorant that I had found someone.

Which pushed me on to my wedding day in 1989.
What took so long, and why did we marry so young?
Everyone around us happy, none more than us.

To a blizzard in 1992 and the birth of our first daughter.
I thought I knew joy before, but nothing next to this.
She stole my heart with her first breath.

To New Years 1995 and the wee hours of the morning;
The birth of our second and an exponential leap in happiness.
All the pieces in place for the rest of my life.

Until we changed our mind in 2008 (a moment I peeked in on),
And told the girls (another blissfully happy visit),
And had our third in 2009.

I lingered at that moment, with all of us in the delivery room
(two hiding behind the bathroom door),
As much joy in that moment as all the others combined.

And then I set the dial as far ahead as it would take me,
Which was only to yesterday, when I found the time machine.
It won't let me see into my future until I get there myself.

As I think back today, I see that I'd only stopped at the happy times,
The shiny and irresistible happy times,
Not bothering with those that weren't,

And now, with no time machine to carry me ahead,
There will be times of joy, but no power to stop there,
And there will be times that aren't, with no power to skip them.

Advancing in time, one second at-a-time,
Every moment mine to experience once, whether I want to or not,
And to relive forever, if I choose.

In the time machine I found yesterday.