You ever hear of, or think of a word and it sends you into song, where you pick up and finish lyrics to the song of which the word reminded you? For example, if I write: STOP – some of you might automatically think: “collaborate and listen…” – and some of you just sang that to yourselves or aloud. The word TIME has that affect on me. It sends me right into singing one of my favorite karaoke songs: “In The End” by Linkin Park. As the lyrics go: “Time is a valuable thing –
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings – Watch it count down to the end of the day -The clock ticks life away – It’s so unreal – Didn’t look out below – Watch the time go right out the window – Trying to hold on…”
Trying to hold on… that’s all we have been doing for months; trying to hold on. To uncertainty, to slowing down, to it fleeting by, to the very last sound of breath within in. Just. Hold. On.
Time IS a valuable thing! Yet we often squander it. As I type I wonder if this blog is some times a waste of time. Does anyone read it? Is it helping anyone? Does it help me? I am certain I am not the only one who evaluates how they spend their time. I often feel I would love to spend far less time on the internet, and as of late, I do. I am using my downtime to discover more of what I love about life. I feel, as the clock continues to tick seconds away from my life, I might as well embrace as many of those ticks as I have left. No one is guaranteed the next tick. So we should find value in each one we do have.
As a parent, I have watched that pendulum swing through sleepless nights when babies were inconsolable, to sleepless nights I had because my youngest baby slept too soundly. It was unnerving, to me. To the toddler years where I prayed for time to hurry up and let them grow up so they’d be easier to manage…to the teenage years when I prayed they could slow down and be toddlers again, so they’d be easier to manage… to adulthood, where I watch their next chapters unfold and time tick another second away from time with children in my home. It’s heartwarming and heartbreaking, all at the same time. I can only hope I gave them enough of my time, or hope they will still visit and bless me with theirs.
As a new chapter opens at the Knople Kastle (as we call it), I wonder what time going forward looks like for my husband and me. Having already been married once, I have what are probably normal questions about if time will favor us or ruin us. Will we continue to grow together or eventually grow apart? Only time will tell. I believe it the former. This is the longest time either of is have spent in a relationship (17 years). Time has not always been on our side, but we always try to make the most of it.
What is time to you? One day I really pondered time. I wrote an entire journal entry about how it is a man-made construct of which to measure a day. When I think about those words I wrote that day, I realize we really, truly define time and how we measure it. It can be in each tick of the clock, but it’s also in blocks of milestones of the past and the future. However, we never consider the block of NOW. How often do you stop and allow yourselves to be mindfully aware of just being? No expectations. No judgment. Just. Be. I’ve found it naturally slows time. I’ve found it helps eeek out the tick of the clock, to the point you do not notice it at all, and you just experience this time, right now. Try it. It’s a beautiful thing.
Time is an interesting construct. When I practice living mindfully, in the now, I am reminded that every now was once the future and will soon be the past. So, if we think about time in those terms, we understand nothing lasts forever. Embrace the beauty and surrender to the heartache. This too shall pass. Time will march on. The pendulum will continue to swing, now and always.
However you choose to spend your time, enjoy as much of it as you can. Each of us are stamped with an expiration date. Only the Divine knows when that is, so breath into each tick and relax in the space between each tick and take not one single moment of time for granted. In doing so, you’ll always have time on your side.