Going downhill is an uphill job. If it’s due to finances, yes, it’s hard to live within a predictable budget that’s eroded by rising costs. If a downhill slide is because of failing health, same. We feel fine until someone tells us otherwise. We might be failing, but there’s still time.
We sort of think nothing should change, grow, diminish or be altered just because our circumstances are unpredictable. We get accustomed to managing time to suit us while not noticing our slow march into a mud hole of an outlook.
Then something wonderful happens. But we don’t dwell on it it because we’re busy.
Time is elastic. Time is constant. Time is rock steady. For sure, time provides a teeny gap between us because we all look at it differently – how to spend it and what a good time we had.
Stephen Hawking, maybe, was the one who figured out that the light of the morning sun is eight minutes old before it reaches us, which makes us late right away. But what about our “inner clock?” A day, and a year, are cycles of the sun, and a month is based on the moon. That’s the elastic part and we can’t change it.
After we get born and it is decided by others that we should go to school, time changes. We’re scheduled and vaguely aware that “Get ready for school or you’ll be late,” says more about time than about school.
We learn to tell time. We make arrangements to do something at a certain time, then make time for it.
Remember the story of the farmer who lifted his pig to a peach branch to feed it? His neighbor said, “Doesn’t that take a lot of time?” The farmer answered, “What’s time to a hog?”
Jeremiah Alvarado mentions in Indy Soul this week that 2021 seems to be moving faster than 2020. 2021 is one day shorter than last year, but February 29 always feels like a surprise, a tip. Leap Day is neither a waste of time nor time well spent. Just extra.
Last year wasn’t about lost time. It was about spending the same 24 hours, seven days, 12 months differently. All we knew was that we didn’t know. Whether we were victims of a virus or the baggage it brought, like forcing us to rely on technology that kept us in touch without allowing us to touch, we adjusted.
It was interesting that we were encouraged, if not forced, to keep our distance, cover our faces and keep our hands clean as a Montana sky, but it worked.
It was also interesting that we craved watching and reading covid news until… we didn’t. It feels like we all hit the mute button at the same time. We stopped discussing news and started discussing weather. People learned to play dominoes, give each other haircuts and drink better wine while gardening.
Time moves forward but it can’t go back. We can’t trick it. Time was stable while we figured out how to live through unemployment, waiting, and year-long hockey.
We did it. We can’t ever reset the clock, but we can be very proud of understanding we have the time to make even bigger changes that we know it’s time for.