Playing with Time

I suppose it's no coincidence that almost immediately after my baby’s third birthday, I have become a little preoccupied with time. For a full week now, my kids have been in school five days a week. Five days. Geez, that whizzed by fast. And the clock is still ticking. It’s all very finite, you know, our time. I can’t help myself but to obsess over what I have and have not done with my time, what I should or shouldn't do with it, how quickly it runs way from me, where it goes when it's gone.

Sometimes I feel angry that time goes by so fast. It feels like I've been cheated out of some other experience, the one I was supposed to get. But I don't even know what that other experience is.

In Mexico, time flows differently, or maybe that’s not Mexico so much as simply being on vacation. In any case, when you’re away from home and work, time slides past you on another level.

When you’re living and breathing in your own space, within your own routine, time has another way about it. It feels pretty slow when you’re in the thick of it, tending to the tedium, and then suddenly you stop to breathe or clean your face and there’s a totally different person in the mirror. It’s a little nuts. Just a little nuts is all, and that’s what I’ve been thinking about. Obsessing over.

My kids are growing up.

My parents are getting older.

My body’s aging.

My life is changing.

But it’s not a bad thing. On the contrary, I think it's all going to be ok, even if my feelings are all over the map. Sometimes I feel aloof and want to turn my back on the whole thing.

Sometimes I feel bored. I wonder, what's the point, anyway? But you know what an annoying optimist I am. Those thoughts don't linger for long. And the rest of the time, I feel excited and interested.

These are the times when I feel alive, like I need to be present. Like I'm needed. I feel it when my kids are laughing, or when I'm with the people who make me feel loved. When I'm doing yoga or meditating or when I've found something new.

And the coolest thing ever is when the new thing I find is something really old that I just learn to see differently. Like me. Like my own shiny face in the mirror.

Sure the clock is still ticking. It is all very finite. But that's actually motivating to me. I'm gonna let it light a fire under my ass. And hopefully I'll figure out pretty quickly what I should and shouldn't do with my time and then follow through on that as much as I can, before it all runs way from me, and goes whereever it goes when it's gone.