Time Flies

One summer, I remember being particularly bored and actually ready for school to begin again (don't judge, I get excited about school supplies too) and was whining to whoever was within ear shot about how bored I was and how slowly time was moving.
My grandfather, whom I adored, informed me that a week to me was a year to him. As an 8ish year old, it wasn't really a profound statement, although I remember my mom standing nearby and being in complete disbelief, and amazingly so agreement. I thought they were both crazy. Now I know why. Well, I don't know why they were crazy, I'm not sure a psychologist could even answer that question, but I understand the disbelief.

*It's hard to believe I've been at TTU for almost 2 years. I'll finish my second year and 5th (thanks to summer school) semester in December.

*I'll be 33 in September.

*John and I will celebrate our 13th Anniversary in December.

*The puppy that John gave me for my birthday, just before our 2nd anniversary, will be 11 years old this year.

*My other furry baby will be 10.

*My grandfather has been gone for 8 years this October. He would be 90 on Halloween.

*My grandmother 6 in January. She would be 82 in October.

*They would have been married 64 years this year.

*My niece will turn 12 in August. I remember when she was just a toddler with little blonde ringlets.

*Her brother turned 9 last month. I remember when he was born.

* I remember my stepsister telling everyone else that she was pregnant, but avoided telling me because she knew how devastated I would be, because at the time John and I were pursuing infertility treatments to have our own child. I remember tears running down my checks when she finally called and told me that she was having a baby in just 3 short months. I sat in the floor of our bedroom and cried when we hung up.

*I remember the day that John and I agreed that we couldn't keep doing treatments. It was only yesterday, but actually it was 6 years ago.

*I've been at the same job, since we moved for 4 years last month.

*My 15 year high school reunion is next year.

*I remember when I had to by hair dye because my husband informed me that I had several gray hair patches. That was last week, his funeral will be soon...I just have to find him first.

It's funny how the older we get our perceptions and our perspectives change. I have an amazing friend (who I'm quite sure we are sisters and were separated at birth, because she is the only other person I have found who doesn't like the milk after cereal has contaminated it, along with a variety of other freaky similarities) who is currently fighting cancer. Her oldest child, who is absolutely adorable and brilliant (no, I'm not biased), was born 2 months early. Her perception of time is probably vastly different than mine. Although I'm sure that there are moments that time passes us both by faster and slower than we would like it too, yet, we both grasp that it's moving way to quickly when it comes to the grand scheme of things.

There are plans and choices that we are making in our life right now that have a expiration date on them. Once we begin in order to reach our desired end result, we have to commit to spending 2 years on the process. Right now that seems like a dreadful length of time to wait, especially for something as special as the end result would be to both of us. Yet, there are other things going on in my life that I want to give a chance too as well (I would elaborate more, but we are avoiding all parents, family, friends, and people who actually know us, so that we can be completely happy with this choice and have no regrets later on down the road to elaborate now), so that a prior option that wasn't an option might actually be an option.

And if you understood any of that you deserve some sort of medal. Because I wrote it, I knew what I was talking about and I don't understand any of it. You're Welcome.

My point (which was lost about 3 paragraphs ago), was how time keeps ticking away whether we want it to or not. And my grandfather, he was right. When your waiting for something big, 2 years will seem like a lifetime, yet when your just trucking along trying to finish college, 2 years will seem like yesterday.

So the question remains, what will you regret in a year that you didn't start doing today?

Welcome to the Warp Zone

Imagine, if you will, a deep voice, much like that of Jon Luke Piccard.

Welcome to the Time Warp Zone

These are the voyages of the Abby Enterprise….I was going to be cute here and give you my version of the beginning version of Star Trek, which thanks to my mother’s unnatural love of weird shows, I thought was permanently ingrained into my brain. I’m very, very pleased to realize that without googling it, I don’t remember anymore than that. Thank goodness.

Then the phone rings, and it’s my mother. Coincidence or not?!? Maybe she has mind reading powers…but that’s a whole different post.

I digress.

Have you ever waken up and got to work and realized its not the right day? You know, you think that today is Wednesday and it’s actually Thursday. Or you are writing a check (yes, I still do that, I’m not completely plastic yet) and you realize that it’s the 20th of July and you are wondering what happened to July? Because yesterday it was just the 2nd.

Welcome to Calendar Warp.

Calendar Warp – n – a strange disease that effects people after age 25, or earlier if they have small children. (yeah, I made it up, don’t go fussing at Webster)

This doesn’t affect small children. They haven’t been taught how to do it yet. They still remember how to live in the moment.

How many times have you gone on a trip with your kids and they ask how much longer? Or when you are getting ready to go on vacation? All they care about is right now. Not tomorrow, not next week, now. I so envy that.

I was about 10 when my grandfather told me that a year to me, was a week to him.

That’s a profound thought. The older I get the more accurately I understand it, and the more I wish I didn’t. Most days I feel like it shouldn’t be (insert whatever month here). It can’t be time for the truck payment again. It can’t be 5 more months until Christmas. But it is. Time really isn’t going faster. There are still 24 hours a day, still 60 minutes in an hour, still 60 seconds in a minute, still 365 days in a year. Yet, ask a 5 year old and they will tell you that there are millions of seconds, billions of minutes, and trillions of hours in a day.

Am I warped? You betcha! Ok, perhaps I should rephrase the question…do I suffer from calendar warp? You betcha. I’m not the innocent 5 year old anymore. I have bills to pay, work to do, and chores to do. The work days drag and the weekends fly by. Or so I think, but I wake up and it’s the middle of July, and last week it was April.

It makes me feel old, it makes me realize how fast babies grow up, and how complicated things are compared to how complicated things were.

Maybe the kids are onto something. Maybe they remember to slow down and smell the flowers. And all we think about is watering and weeding the flowers.

I know that slowing down is definitely something that I have forgotten how to do. I spend 45 hours a week at work, at least 15-20 doing homework, plus cooking, cleaning laundry, sleeping, taking a shower. It’s a wonder I have time to go to the bathroom. My life is complicated, definitely more so than it was as a 5 year old. I have that awful “R” word. You know, responsibilities. Yeah that one.

I would love to have a different perspective, and the ability to slow down, but unfortunately life as an adult doesn’t always work that way. If I skip tonight’s study session, it will just mean that I have twice as much tomorrow to do, and that there will be one less day to work on it before it is due. I can skip the truck payment, while my bank account may appreciate that fact, I’m sure that bank that the truck is financed through won’t.

I keep thinking that maybe, just maybe I’ll find the time to stop and take a breather. To stop worrying about when the bills are due, and what day it is. Maybe it would help if I would stop wishing time away. You know, wishing it was 5pm so I could leave work already. Wishing it was Friday instead of Monday.

Ever wonder how different things would be if we didn’t have clocks and watches? If there were no way to judge time, other than the rising and the setting of the sun, do you think that our lives would be different?

I’m pretty sure that there is no cure for calendar warp. Time will keep moving forward whether I want it too or not.

I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse. I guess it all depends on whether I stop and smell the flowers, or just water them and move on.

~You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by. ~James Matthew Barrie

~Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. ~Carl Sandburg

~The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. ~C.S. Lewis

~Time, the cradle of hope.... Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends. ~Charles Caleb Colton

Winning the Lottery

If you were to win the lottery what would you do? This is a question that we have all thought about at one time or another. Would you buy a house, car, get out of debt, or give it to charity?

I thought I had the answer nailed down to this question, until a co-worker and I were talking this morning about how little time we had and it made it hard to juggle work, school, families and the gym. He has plans for a house and other things that he would want, just as I do, but he said something that has been plaguing me ever since. He said that he would buy time.

Time?

You can't buy time.

It's issued to you at the beginning of each day. You get 24 hours to spend it however you want. You can add to that or take away, it's the same amount without fail each day.

I instantly knew what he meant. Having that kind of money would give you the freedom to quit your job, and have the time to do the things that you wanted to do. You would, in a sense, be buying time.

Yeah, I would still want the house that had the kitchen that I wanted, and the small SUV for me and the pickup for my husband, as well as a motorcycle and a sports car. Probably a vette, because it's all made here by Chevy. But once those things were bought, there isn't much else I would want. No fancy jewelry, no yacht, no mansion. Just a simple 4 bedroom house with a garage and shop and the kitchen of my dreams. This house could realistically be built and furnished under 1 million dollars. I would pay off my parents mortgage and their car, because after my dad's heart attack, money is a luxury that they don't have. They do have time though, and I'm not sure that they realize how precious and luxurious that is. I would pay off my in-laws mortgage as well. And then I would anonymously pay off my dad's doctor bills and pay for insurance each year for them both. They would know who did it, but it would be more fun making them wonder. It's always fun to do something wonderful for someone else, when they have no clue who did it. Then I would invest the rest in various things and live off the interest.

These plans are probably not as grandiose as someone else's might be. They are simple, but like my co-worker said, they are buying me time. Time to read, go to the gym, watch the sunrise, watch the sunset, stitch, watch a movie with my husband, and lay in the floor and play with my puppies.

You don't realize how valuable time is, until you don't have any. Just ask someone who has only months to live. Ask someone who sent their baby off to kindergarten. Ask someone whose baby was born weeks early. Ask someone who is so busy that they don't remember what it was like to not be behind.

How valuable is your time? Mine is worth so much more than what I could win in any lottery. What is your time worth?