Time to . . . what?
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1
Forty-four years ago in Mrs. Brown’s 4th grade reading class, the homework was to create a poem using each letter of your first name to start a line.
When class started, Mrs. Brown called on her pets to read their poems aloud.
I was not one of them. Which was fine and expected.
Then the unexpected happened.
After everyone handed in their work and we were busy at our desks, Mrs. Brown graded the stack of poems at the back of the class.
“Tracy?” Mrs. Brown’s brown eyes looked up and she called my name.
“Did you write this?” she asked.
“Yes,” said fourth grade me who-went-by-my-middle-name-Tracy.
“It’s really very good,” said Mrs. Brown with the lovely brown hair and intense brown eyes.
* * *
I had chosen Time as the subject of my work because Tracy, my middle name, started with T.
I only remember one line of my ditty. The verse starting with the letter C.
Can time be made to rule us?
The question I’ve wrestled my entire life.
When I saw the Finish the Sentence Friday prompt this week:
If I only had . . .
more time
popped into my head faster than the next second clicked on my Fitbit.
More time to clean house.
More time to get to the pool for a swim.
More time to shop for groceries and more time to prepare the greens from the garden for dinner.
More time to sleep.
More time to read.
More time to talk and laugh with friends.
More time to practice that darn backbend for yoga. It’s a backbend for pity’s sake. Forty years ago I could sidle my way to school in a backbend. Attempting one now makes my head spin like I’ve had too much tequila. Half a bottle too much.
More time to slow down.
More time to write.
The irony is if I really had more time, I would spend more minutes puttering around Walmart and Ingles staring at the ibotta app. Do more laundry. Stress more about how I am stressing out. Sign my children up for more activities to fill more time. Lie awake at night more wondering why my body is doing this or doing that. Wondering what the next 20 years hold for my children. Resenting not being able to spend the more time I’ve been given — doing what I want to do.
Time frustrates the hell out of me.
In 4th grade, we measured things by the length of an episode of Gilligan’s Island or how long the wait was for Space Mountain.
Today we measure life in exacting increments.
I slept 5 hours and 0 minutes the other night.
Yes. I scratched out my weight because I’m a coward. Who never has enough time.
I burned 108 calories in a 21 minute, 21 second walk of the dog.
Yesterday took me 3 hours to write two sentences on my novel.
No. The last one is untrue. I wrote at least two paragraphs.
Can time be made to rule us?
I’ve certainly let it lord over me most of my life.
At least I got a good grade on my poem that moment in time 44 years ago.
So I got that going for me.
Thoughts?
Linking up with the Finish the Sentence Friday crowd.
