Time

If I had more time…

I’d write more, dance more, love more… I’d have more friends… I’d make more and take more adventures… I’d sleep more, self-soothe more, pause more. With more time for me, there’d be more of me to share with others.

If only there were just a few more hours in each day… I’d be better, do better… life would be better… with more time.

But in the quiet, I remember… life is nothing but time… it’s how we choose to spend that time that shapes and defines our lives. And I remember the lives that I’m molding, shaping, saving. Despite my feelings of inadequacy, I suppose there’s no greater thing to do with that time…

That time that I’ve been given… the ticker that started 40 years ago and has a battery life that is unknown to all but the highest power. In a blend of quiet reflection and panic, I wonder, I plead, for a lot more time.

Here I am, gifted with this vessel of- time to invest in the present moment, time to make every difference, time to build and create. Sitting on a pile of forty albeit hard, still blessed years, like coins of gold, I determine how they are spent… and yet here I am, unsatisfied and selfishly asking, pleading, for more.

Perhaps it’s not “more” that I need. After all, there is no bank to withdraw more of this precious currency of life. But instead, perhaps I need an advisor… an analysis of how it is that I am choosing to spend my minutes, hours. How does each investment serve me? Serve others? What is the overall yield? In this culture of endless “more”s , how much time is frivolously spent on mindless screens and scrolling? What if I could deduct time spent in traffic? On pointless worry? On stewing? On regret?

“Time is the apparent progression of events from past to future… the evolution of time appears to be continuous and irreversible.” *

There is no going back and no speeding forward. There is only ever, right now.

From my quiet place, that place that feeds my soul and allows for slow and beautiful growth… I pause and stand. Putting my best foot forward, I reset my goals to speak only truth and kindness- and to correct my missteps without dwelling on them. To notice life and beauty, everywhere. To make a difference, in ways both big and small- a smile at a stranger, time to talk to the lonely, efforts to grow and watch grow, pause to soak in the sunshine, the songs of the birds, the laughter of my children and the playful eye of my lover. To wipe my tears and tend to my fragility, to courageously feed my strength.

My hourglass hides in the clouds and I know not how many grains remain in the glass enclosure, but I reset… not to ask for more… but to treasure each one that hangs in the balance and then falls. For in that grain, holds a million opportunities for greatness. And they each belong to me.

*Quote by Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist article on Livescience.com