It’s Astounding. Time Is Fleeting...
By Randy Kaufman
It’s astounding.
Time is fleeting.
Madness takes its toll…”
— The Time Warp, The Rocky Horror Show
1977
I spent the first six months of my Middlebury education studying in Paris. Home was with Madame Jacques, the maid, her large, drooling English Setter named Vulcain (after the Roman God of Fire), her ex who visited every week, and Lisa, an American student from Columbia who kept me company—and kept me sane.
Studying film and French literature at the Sorbonne sounded like a dream come true. There was just one small problem: the university had no money to show films.
The classes were easy. Paris was magical. And one afternoon Lisa suggested we hop across the Channel to London.
“Pourquoi pas?” I replied.
As a New York City girl, theater wasn’t exactly a novelty. But Lisa had a friend with tickets to a new show everyone was talking about. For two students living on Parisian budgets, free tickets felt like winning the lottery.
We settled into a dark, aging London theater and waited for the curtain to rise. We had no preset expectations as we had never heard of the show.
Then Tim Curry walked onto the stage.
He wore a black satin corset, fishnet stockings, long black gloves, dramatic eyeliner, a pearl necklace, and a sweeping cape. He spoke. He sang. He strutted. He owned every inch of that stage.
There was nothing ironic about his performance. He wasn’t pretending to be outrageous.
He was outrageous—with complete confidence.
It was unlike anything I had ever seen.
2026
Nearly fifty years later, I’ve seen the movie at least twenty-five times and listened to the soundtrack countless times more. So when I heard The Rocky Horror Show was celebrating its 50th anniversary with a Broadway revival, I didn’t walk for tickets.
I ran.
It’s a chilly, damp April evening in New York City.
Half a century has passed since that night in London.
I’ve lost touch with my sweet Paris roommate. I’ve been a lawyer, an investment banker, and now I find myself ending my career with my most rewarding job ever: an independent wealth advisor. Besides Paris and Vermont, I’ve lived in New York, Chicago, Boston, and now the hills of upstate New York. I've traveled farther than the eighteen-year-old on that ferry could ever have imagined. I’ve loved and lost more dogs than I can count. Each one marked a chapter of my life. I’ve said goodbye to people and places I thought would always be part of my life.
Somewhere along the way, the young woman who boarded a ferry from Paris to London became… me.
My husband and I had anticipated this evening for months, and we committed fully to the experience.
As much as I wanted to dress as Janet—or the far sexier Columbia—I had no choice but to become Magenta.
Think French maid… with a twist.
Dramatic eye makeup (not much of a stretch for me), a pale complexion (also authentic), a rumpled dress, gloriously frizzy red hair. One writer described Magenta as “playful, mysterious, seductive, and just a little dangerous.”
I’ll take it.
The music was every bit as good as I remembered.
The costumes were terrific, of course.
The acting? Fine.
The audience? Surprisingly restrained.
But none of that mattered.
Because as I sat there, I wasn’t thinking about the show.
I was thinking:
Where did the time go?
How had fifty years passed so quickly?
How had one lifetime managed to hold so much?
Time Is Indeed Fleeting
Seneca wrote, “Life is long if you know how to use it.”
The opening lyrics of The Time Warp remind us: “Time is fleeting.”
And then there is the quote often attributed to the Buddha:
“The trouble is, you think you have time.”
Whether or not Buddha actually said it almost doesn’t matter. The sentiment feels true.
When I look back over the last fifty years, I’m struck less by how quickly they disappeared than by how full they were.
No one knows how much time remains. I certainly don’t.
What I do know is that I have already been given an extraordinary gift.
I’m grateful for every chapter—for the exhilarating ones and the painful ones, the ordinary Tuesdays and the spectacular adventures, the failures that taught me something, and the people who walked beside me along the way.
The moments that seemed insignificant often became the ones I remember most. Just another random night in London when I was 18.
The young woman who boarded that ferry from Paris to London thought she was simply going to see a play.
She had no idea she was beginning a memory that would stay with her for nearly fifty years.
None of us knows which ordinary day will become extraordinary in hindsight.
That's why we should pay attention.
It's astounding.
Time is fleeting.
So let's make the most of the time we've been given.
And every once in a while...
Let's do the Time Warp again.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Randy Kaufman, formerly a corporate tax attorney and investment banker, is now a wealth advisor who prides herself on focusing on what matters most: clients’ peace of mind, family dynamics, and getting enough, not more. Randy is a passionate student of impact investing, strategic philanthropy, and behavioral psychology (while not a psychologist, she occasionally plays one in the boardroom). She is dedicated to helping the underprivileged and is a proud member of global venture fund Acumen's advisory board. A thinker, learner, and pursuer of overarching truths, she is always eager to discuss big ideas about money, and its off-and-on associate, happiness.