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.
Yeah, time is weird that way as you mentioned with the Walmart thing. The more of it I have, the less productive I am with it for some reason. It makes me think that it’s a gift to us intended to be treated with the utmost of care and respect, like a species near extinction; otherwise, if there were more of it, we’d take it for granted and not use it as wisely. I love how you wrapped the story of your childhood poem and the moment with your teacher into this post. Full circle thoughts like that are priceless.
oh Jamie, you are writing about my mantra, “If Only I had More Time.” I couldn’t write about it, because I feel like it’s all I ever write! The Fitbit – I didn’t know it kept track of sleep, too. I want to get one buy I recently took a part-time accounting job and my time is even more limited and I’m scared of what the FitBit would tell me! Oh, and you do need more sleep.:)
Boy, if I had an app that measured sleep.. I worry what it would show about how many times I wake up!
I always thought I had so much time. Sometimes I still do. It’s weird. Other times, not at all.
This reminds me of a poem I wrote in 8th grade. We all had to write poems based on Langston Hughes and she read many aloud, but not mine. But then she stopped class and said, “Your poem, Tammy, was very good.”
TIME. Ouch. I truly don’t understand why I never have enough of it. The very first time my daughter phoned home from college I couldn’t help but notice the disappointment in her voice at the end of the phone call.
“What’s wrong, M?”
“I just thought with me not home you’d have more time to do the stuff you want to do.”
Ouch.
Now as to fitbits … well, I find mine contributes to my time challenged frustration. You see it annoys me when I don’t walk the dog to the tune of 10,000 steps. Lately, I ‘ve only been getting in 7000 – 8000 on the walk. Why? Not enough time of course. I’ve got to get back home and do other stuff. Mostly sitting stuff – like writing.
I do thank you. Knowing that I’m not alone in the time frustration department is beyond comforting. I’ll work on taking things one MINUTE at a time …
Oh to have more time. I think it does rule us actually – way too much so. Also great minds think alike with this week’s prompt! 😉
Ok so now I want a fitbit. I didn’t realize that it’d tell you how much of your sleep was restless sleep and all that. Or maybe I don’t want to know?
I slept 6 hours and 29 minutes. I don’t even have my weight on my dashboard. I must have opted out of looking at it. 😉 I think in time increments too. It makes my mind always in a rush and I thinks that what makes it hard to fall asleep. The brain has to slow down and relax. Off to see what is ibotta.
I do try and check in mentally when I feel myself vegging out looking at Facebook rather than reading a book that I am enjoying — as an example. To remind myself even if it is time for me to recharge my brain and body, (rather than a necessary task) what is best use of that time? And it is funny how that moment and that line from that poem stuck with me. Who knows?
I could write a post about “how the person who said she never would never wear a Fitbit — is wearing a Fitbit.” I was semi anti-FBit because I felt I need to relax more. Why would I want to keep track of my heart beat, steps and sleep? My husband tired of wearing his after 6 months and I recently strapped it on. It’s been more fun than I expected. Not so stressful but I’m learning that most of my days have the same stats — so it’s a bit boring after a while.
That story about your poem made me smile. Funny how I remember sitting there hoping she was going to call on me to read my poem but not being surprised that she didn’t. So funny the things and emotions that stick with us. As far as waking up, my avg is about 3 wake ups a night. Which surprised me. I thought it would be a lot more. It also measures how many times you were restless. That I usually hit between 13 — 22 times. Oy.
Your last thought makes me think, maybe I stay frustrated (or exhausted) because I don’t take things (mentally) one at a time. I might be cooking dinner, but I’m thinking of all the things I needed to get done and didn’t. I’m thinking on which tasks I could do simultaneously with dinner prep. Which ones after dinner? What is my son doing on the computer? Did he get all his math done? What is my daughter doing upstairs? The laundry needs to be put away. CRAZY.
Like I mentioned in Tamara’s reply — I thought I woke up all night long. FitBit says three times most nights then lots of restless moments. Usually double digits.
You got to do ibotta. I just put $60 in my checking account from biota. I think that was from January but still pretty good.
Nice to “Meet” you from the FTSF crowd!
I know if I had more time I would just fill it up, too. That’s why I don’t carry a big purse or drive a minivan. I’d fill those up as well. 🙂
Katy, that made me laugh. As far as the big purse. I’ve tried. I really have. But I can’t kick the big purse habit. Honestly, for me I think it’s more because I’m terribly scattered (isn’t that how they referred to ADHD when we were young?) Every now and then I dump the contents out on my bed and purge. It does take time though. As well as finding my car keys that I never seem to drop into the little pocket (where they would always be — easy to find) inside the big bag.
If I had it to do over again, I would spend so much less time on obligations and “should dos”. But the thing is that is based on wisdom that was only gained through the passage of time. So, yes. Reluctantly I say that time can be made to rule us. Darn it. But at this age I am much less likely to follow times rules without a fight!
I was talking about this with my students (I’m a higher ed consultant) – how we get things done in the time we have to do them. BUT, we can harness time better by imposing self-created deadlines or tasks. I try to do this myself when I’ve been messing around on Amazon for 74 minutes comparing prices on baby socks for my daughter. Eventually I tell myself I have 10 minutes to make a decision and move on.
I do think time can rule us because we let society rule us. I try really hard to live a simple life. I do things on my own time because I like taking my time. The Tao talks about walking lightly, and that’s my philosophy on living life. Walk lightly. It’s healthier. You’ll live longer and happier. But people won’t let me. If my kids are late for school, are without homework that’s signed by me, are late for appointments… If my house is a mess… If I’m late for dinner at my mom’s house… If I’m late getting ready to meet friends… Everything we do is because if we don’t, people will hurt us in some way whether they ostracize us from their community or threaten to have our kids taken away over some stupid difference of opinion, or something… Society rules us because we have no choice if we want to survive. I resent people in general for that.
I find that I have the time if I choose to make the time. I often don’t, unless it is something very important to me. I complain that I don’t have the time, but it’s more a matter of choosing how to use it.
Fourth grade you was very wise!
Time is something we create, an illusion or so I have read. Lately it feels like the illusion is winning.
Everything feels like it is three steps harder than it should be. Not really sure why, just know that is how it feels.
“The illusion is winning . . .” Yep.