los qualidades del tiempo

TIME – it has so many attributes, so many hats it wears, both good and bad. It’s such a funny concept and is not something that I think you can get use to dealing with because in each situation in your life it plays a different role, at least lately that’s what I’ve found in mine.

Time is, of course, relative (or so that wacko Albert tells us) or rather in this example of being at home, brief. While being home for the holidays, time felt to fly-by, leaving me trailing behind, doubled-over and sucking wind. It felt as if I couldn’t have seen all my friends and family and have time to relax no matter how much I compromised my sleeping time. There just wasn’t enough time when I wanted it the most. No matter how much I wanted to just stop time and savor the moment or how deliberate I was with every move, I just felt like I could not slow it down (because DUH, you can’t). I squeezed every ounce of life out of time, trying to memorize each action and each emotion felt with these ever so important people.

Time is something of a necessity as well. This I realized because no matter how much you may care for someone or how much you connect with people, it takes time to catch up. You just NEED this kind of time, nothing can substitute—no amount of charisma or charm is going to do the trick because feelings come when they come. They cannot be forced. I consider myself one of the most affectionate life forms on the planet, something like the cross-between a massive refrigerator magnet and a golden retriever. But even I need some time to warm up to people I care most about. And that is so excruciatingly frustrating and also puzzling to me—sometimes it takes me the most time to show those I care most about, that I do in fact care about them. So strange. It feels like I will never learn how to more easily show I care, but I suppose in time I will.

That brings me to the next qualities. Time is a healer and a teacher. As much as you don’t want to hear that phrase sometimes, time does actually heal and usually it does a pretty good job if you just have some patience and faith in it. It also has taught me more lessons than I will ever know, lessons I thought I would never learn, like patience. Time has taught me to embrace emotions too, whether they be warm or painful, otherwise I have learned that you just skim over the top of them and it never feels right and you wonder why. Time is a giver. It gives me perspective—something I treasure because so often I find that I can lose it and the process of reacquiring it is priceless.

Although time is a healer, it is also unstoppable. It doesn’t pull a freeze frame and let you sit and take your sweet time healing. Again, this I learned while spending time with those I care most about. I had to come to the reality that I wasn’t, in fact, seeing the same reality of a close friend and as hard as that was, time did not stop for me to pause and take a breath. In fact, it felt like time was like my old coaches yelling at me -- “kick it into high gear missy, this is paying for your education!!!”, convincing me to start pumping my legs into a sprint. It is probably best this way, that time does not hesitate, as otherwise you might be prone to dwell a little longer than is healthy and that’s never a good feeling.

Speaking of time, I have to go adjust my watch.