Time has slipped away from me.
I know, that probably sounds odd coming from an 8+ month pregnant
woman but really, truly, it has.
In the last month Wesley and I bought our first house, became “grown
ups” long enough to figure out insurance, banking, and etc. (;P), moved with
the help of family and friends, and my time has been taken up.
Before we moved in my sister and I painted the living room, baby’s
room, the bedroom, and most of the trim work. A close friend helped with some
of that as well as spent a day helping me clean the house. Once again my sister
(Shelbs) spent a day with me cleaning our rental before handing the keys back.
Painting and cleaning. Both very time consuming.
My time has been consumed.
I am very pleased to say that does make me feel like time is passing
quickly. I’m not constantly sitting around moaning over my uncomfortably large
state. In fact, most of the time I’ve been too busy making lists and crossing
items I’ve completed off to even notice how close I could be to giving birth. Or it might be my nervousness about
giving birth that constantly is pushing the idea into the far corner of my mind…
Due to all the time that has elapsed since my last post, peoples
recent comments about how close I am, and my own statement of “I can’t wait to
meet my baby” has gotten me thinking a lot about time. Not only time though,
rather our perception of it.
You see, I really can wait to meet my baby.
In fact, the last thing
in the world I want to do is rush through the last 3+ weeks. In merely 3ish
weeks I will never ever carry this baby inside me again, I will never be its
sole provider, I will never get the lay awake at night crying tears of joy as I
feel my baby moving inside me assuring me it is alive and well. In around three
weeks I will be forced to give up this closeness. I don’t want to rush that.
But, on the same note, when it is time I will be thrilled to meet my baby face
to face. To compare its features to Wesley’s, to mine. To witness Wesley’s
first contact with our baby. I will get to use new senses in my relationship
with this baby. Things must be given up to be replaced with the new. And I look
forward to that time. I just can wait. I don’t want to rush it.
I want to live all my life in this manner.
I want to take each day at a time and live it to the full potential.
But, you see, I am a control freak.
When it comes to my time I feel an intense need to control. We’re
talking serious list making-calendar filling-micro managing-time freak. My
pocket book calendar has my days broke down. Which day will be cleaning, which
dinners I have planned, what times Wesley will get off, what days he will go
run, which days he will do strength training. I have a pad of paper on which I
write out detailed daily lists. What time I’ll get up, which chores I’ll do,
which projects, who I’ll see, when and what I’ll eat. Now, truth be told, I don’t
always have my days schedule written out on paper, sometimes it’s just carved
in stone inside my head. But that’s just it. It’s there and it is to be
followed.
See? I control my days.
And then, every once in a while that control is taken from me. I will
have a day planned and then *poof* something unexpected comes up and my list is
worthless. Wesley comes home from work, my day is almost complete, I have
dinner plans figured out, I’ve imagined us spending the evening sitting on the
couch sipping tea and discussing our days, planning for tomorrow, and then he
walks in the door saying “let’s go out tonight. You have some groceries to get,
right?”
“Uhm… Y e s … but I didn’t plan on going out tonight.” [Que internal
panic and a mad dash for rescheduling and righting the chaos created in mere
seconds.]
(It’s really not that I can’t be spontaneous, its just that… I like
to know when I’m going to be..)
On days when control is so cruelly ripped from me I often spend a few seconds in
panic and then that evening, depending on the size of the change, I may experience
some depression over (1) losing my control and (2) the day not going “perfectly”.
Depression of this sort, much as in any other case, is draining. It leaves a
very bleak outlook. I realize how much time I spent planning and quickly wonder
how much of my life has been wasted on plans that never take place. Then I may
spend several hours bemoaning the fact that I waste most of my life planning
useless plans.
Is there an answer to my dilemma?
Should I stop planning all together? *shudder*
Should I fly by the seat of my pants? Go with the flow?
I’m really not sure. I kind of doubt there is a ‘fix’ for this. I
will probably carry on the rest of my life, planning, viewing change,
re-planning, changing, and re-planning; days on end, weeks, years, and in the
end my entire life time. But I think I’m okay with that. It’s who I am. I need
to plan. I just need to accept the state of re-planning as a comfortable place.
Now, back to my original thought.
Understanding time as it is.
As I’ve reached this point in my pregnancy I am often being told “Don’t
worry, it’ll go fast.” From those supportive glass-is-half-full people and “You
still have three weeks to go, it’ll feel like forever.” From the equally
supportive and realistic people, I’m sorry, I mean glass-half-empty
folks.
Well both of those statements (and almost every other regarding time)
drive me crazy. I usually just want to give them a good shake, whip out my
calendar and shove it in their face. “Do you see this? It’s a year. A year of
days. One year, comprised of 365 - 24 hour days. There is no ‘fast’ there is no ‘slow’
it’s all going by at the same rate everyday. For. Ever.”
Yeah, I’m a little overly passionate about this issue but really, can
you all agree with me? Time doesn’t go faster or slower.
You have to agree with me. It’s a fact.
Time marches on. It’s not waiting on people. It’s not speeding past
people. It marches on at the same rate as always and I’d think we’d be used to
that by now. Stop expecting it to slow down just for you to get extra time with
your munchkins before they turn into adults and stop expecting it to speed up
so you can get this busy week over with. The steadiness of time doesn’t change.
Our perception of it is what changes.
We measure time by how much we’ve accomplished, how busy our days
are, how well we planned them. Time is as it always has and will be; your
perception of it is what is changing. Your view on the “speed” of time is based
on what you expect to get out of it.
Now, maybe the reason I have this pet peeve about time being such a
steady friend is directly connected to my need to control it?
Yes? Yes.
Because for me time is set. At the end of each day it will feel just
that; like one day. At the end of a week I will smile and sigh knowing I wasn’t
cheated out of any time, I had one week, one more solid, seven day period of
time that no one could change. The comfort in exaction of time is oh so important to me. Whether or not I lost control on a
few of those days that week was still a week and in through the glass of
predestination it held exactly what it was supposed to hold.
Time.
I love it.
So everyone else just stop pretending it speeds up and slows downs
and flies past or crawls by because it doesn’t.
Time marches on.
Do remember though; spend your time wisely.
“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there
is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, wither thou
goest.” –Ecclesiastes 9:10
Thanks for taking time out to read my mostly rant like post on time. Hopefully soon I'll have pictures of our new home in tidy order that I'll post :) ~Haley