Time is a B*tch – and Let’s Not Pretend Otherwise

Hooray for the extra hour we gain every October! But it won’t change the fact that I’m almost always late – or, at least I would be if there weren’t repercussions.

Some might say being late is rude, selfish or inconsiderate.

But I’d argue that these qualities are rarely the reason why people are late. And I’m tired of pretending that I’m totally put together in a way that makes being on time easy to do.

You see, clock time moves at a radically different pace than I do.

I was the baby born on the last day of the year.

I was the student pulling all-nighters to write entire term papers mere hours before the teachers collected them.

I’m the woman in her car, counting seconds as a stop light stretches my barely noticeable few-minutes-late into a much ruder 10-minute delay.

I’m the person forever trying to bend time and fit a 20-minute getting-ready ritual into a 7-minute window.

There’s a shame about tardiness in our culture that keeps us from discussing it, but I know I’m not alone in this battle with the clock. Many of us struggle to be on time.

Some of us have low-level (or high-level) chronic pain, so it hurts to stand in a shower or in front of the vanity to get ready. Can you blame us for putting it off till the last minute?

Some of us get really anxious in social situations. If you’ve invited us to a party where we’re supposed to stand around and make small talk with strangers, you can bet we’ll be dragging our feet! (No matter how much we love you and want to support you by being there.)

Some of us just live lives that do not fit in tidy little boxes of minutes and hours.

We’re the ones taking extra time to hold space for a last-minute client who’s having a rough day, are fully immersed in writing a heartfelt blog post, are deep cleaning the kitchen after seeing the fuzzy dirt under the fridge, or are playing tag with our children. A sudden and mechanical end to any of those feels awkward, frustrating, sometimes inappropriate, and quite honestly, stressful.

Now, I’m not suggesting that we become careless towards others and show up to meetings whenever it suits us. We obviously need to keep our commitments and respect other people’s time by being punctual (and communicating when we’re running late).

We are, after all, all dependent on clock time for our lives in modern society to run smoothly.

But, there’s a girl inside me who wants to chuck that clock out the window and do things at her own pace.

Her innate rhythms are intimately tied to the tides of nature, the movement of day and night, the changing of seasons. When she’s free enough to listen, her body knows when it’s hungry and when she needs sleep. Her heart knows when she needs closeness and when she needs solitude.

It’s true for every one of us.

Our internal clocks are exquisite timekeepers and will always guide us to whatever we need, and will let us know when we’ve had enough.

This may sound extreme, but when you really tune into it, there’s a subtle, yet pervasive violence in having to base so much of the flow of our lives on a structure so removed from our authentic and natural self.

Imagine… Up until a few hundred years ago, we humans would have met at high noon, or sundown, or when the moon was barely above the mountain ridge.

How much more gentle would life feel if this were still the case? 

How are our daily lives affected by the way we keep time?

I can’t help but wonder if the reason we spend so much energy and resources on trying to reverse aging is because we don’t feel that we fully lived all our years the first time around.

Our calendars and schedules made it impossible to be fully present for our lives.

If we’d been able to rest in the present moment of what was happening, we might feel more complete, more satisfied with the years behind us. And the promise of a slower pace and spaciousness in our elder years might be more alluring than keeping up with younger generations.

This Sunday, I’ll be glad for the extra hour to enjoy my morning ritual and snuggle time with my husband. But after those few precious moments, you can bet I’ll be back at the struggle, fighting with the randomness of dividing my days according to a structure that I never had a say in creating.

Comments