Time.
In the world of words, time is rather a small word. I mean it only has four letters, but man is it a big word.Time can have some many different meanings to so many different people. We can wish for more time, we can hope that time goes by faster and we can beg time to slow down. Time doesn’t listen to any of us and just keeps plugging along at it’s own pace doing it’s own thing.
We know that time doesn’t listen to our hopes and wishes, but that never stops us from trying. Why is that? Why do we continue to struggle with something that we have no control over? I think this is a very good question and I think we need to take a deeper look into time and how our quest for controlling it ends up controlling us instead.
We can wish for more time:
This one…this one is a tough one for me because “Yes” sometimes I wish I had more time. I wish I had more time with my loved that I have lost. I wish I could share one more laugh with my Sister. I wish I could give my Dad one more hug and I sure as fuck wish I could tell my Mom “I love you” one more time. But the ugly truth is I can’t do one of those things. That time has come and gone and there’s nothing I can do about that. However; what I can do is appreciate the time that I did have with them. I can make sure that I live my life from now in honor of them. When I laugh, I laugh for me and my sister. I give hugs every chance I get because you never know who needs one (It’s defiantly a challenge now with the pandemic but I still try). I hug people because maybe they don’t have anyone else to hug them. I hug people, because let’s face it…I like to hug and it makes me feel good. I tell everyone and I mean everyone that I love them. I don’t hold back. When someone says something nice on my social media channels, I tell them I love them because I do. I have more than enough love to go around and again, maybe that person needed to hear that. Who knows, maybe my Mom is up in heaven bringing these people to me so I can tell them. Kinda like her way telling me that she loves me too.
You can wish for time to go faster:
When I was younger, time dragged like an old boring movie. I remember endless summers having to go and do errands with my Mom. One that I dreaded most was when she would visit her friend Ruth. Let me paint this picture for you.
Ruth was an elderly friend of my Mom’s (I was say she was in her late 70’s) and she lived alone. She had no children and no grandchildren, so my Mom would visit with her and bring me and my sister along for the ride. Now Ruth loved my sister. She was 6 years older than I was and not nearly as curious and antsy as I was. So of course she sat there and listened to the adults in such nice way, while I would keep myself entertained. But how does a girl of 7 entertain herself in a house full of elderly items? Well, it’s not easy but I gave it good try. I remember she had a rocking chair and I would see if I could rock myself across the room. I couldn’t of course because I weighed 25 pounds and that thing was made out of the heaviest wood ever. Did it stop me from trying? Oh Hell no it didn’t. I would sit there feverishly rocking back and forth trying to propel myself forward only to never move an inch. I got yelled at for this every single time but I never gave up. When this didn’t work I would move on to something else.The old exercise bike was another one of my favorites. It was way too big for me that again didn’t stop me. In my mind I was taking part in the Tour de France bike race. In reality, I was making that poor bike squeak to the point they could hear me in the next room and driving Ruth out of her mind. I did this until I got yelled yet. Poor Ruth at this point just didn’t know what to do so she would give me candy. I told you, she had no children or grandchildren so she clearly had no idea that giving sugar to a bored child is a receipe for disaster! Now I was board and hyper. Time was not my friend in these visits. Time slowed down to the pace that it was painful. My Mom would tell us that we were only stopping for a minute and that minute turned into hours. I hated going there and my Mother was painfully aware of that fact but made us go nonetheless. I knew my Sister felt the same way and now that I’m looking back at this, even though she sat there being the “good child” she was the one who would instigate me into these adventures. She did this in hopes that my Mom would get so mad that we would leave. I am proud to say the her plan worked 10 out of 10 times.
You can ask for time to slow down:
Out of all of these examples, the only factor of time that we remotely have any control over is this one.
When we say life is going by too fast, what exactly are we telling ourselves. Are we saying that we are not living everyday to the fullest? Are we saying that there are things we want to change and we are worried that time will run out before we do? What exactly are we saying to ourselves with this one?
I know for a fact that I have no control over time and struggle with time management. I have more projects daily that I have time for. I’m constantly looking for that balance of getting my projects done and have some mental health time for myself. But I am aware of this and that’s what is important. I have to keep a constant eye on this because I don’t want to loose that balance that I have made so far and I work daily on improving my time management.
For me, I have to schedule my time in order to keep it under control, to keep a balance. I was just telling Robert that my Dad had a daily schedule. I wrote everything down and kept track of everything. Partly for his peace of mine (he had to have everything perfect) and partly because he knew he was getting older and didn’t want to miss anything. After my Mom passed away and we had to go through both of their belongings, I found years of pocket calendars that my Dad had kept so he could remember daily chores and keep himself on schedule. For my Dad, time was a necessary evil that he had to control. I fall back on this more and more these days as I get older and as my life picks up speed. Which is weird if you think about it. I’m working on slowing down my time as my life picks up speed. If you find yourself saying “That went by too fast” or “I can’t believe the year is over, that went by so fast” you might want to stop and make sure you are giving yourself enough time to enjoy your life. This really isn’t as hard as it sounds. Maybe give yourself 5 minutes of quiet time before bed or start reading for 30 minutes a day. Whatever it is that you decide to give yourself, make sure it is something that will bring you joy.
When people ask me….
“Lonni, if you really did have the opportunity to turn back time, would you?”
The truthful answer is “No”.
I wouldn’t go back and change anything in fear of changing who I am now. Yes, I have a very painful past and yes the easy out would be to go back and make everything pain free. That however; would change who I am now and I love who I am today. I wouldn’t have the same outlook, the same experiences to share with you and the same gratefulness for life that I have now. That is the important take away from this blog today. The understanding that as soon as we stop trying to control time, we can start appreciating what we have this very day, hour, minute and second. I can’t bring anyone back, I can’t undo my pain or the pain I caused my children, so why spend any time or energy trying. I know it’s hard to give the quest to control time, but the reality is this is the first step in finding a deeper level of inner peace and truthfully in todays world we could all use a little more this.
I hope this helps anyone who struggles with time and I would love to hear your comments on this and suggestions for other topics.
Until next time…….