Time: if you can’t beat it, join it?

I just read this book called The New Policeman by Kate Thompson. It is a children’s novel that speaks about our modern plague: the chronic lack of time. In the story, a mother asks for some time for her birthday- not the special, one off, vacation kind, but the everyday, run of the mill time to just sit there kind. Her son is determined to get it for her. This leads him to the land of Eternal Youth, where, alas, they are having a crisis of their own. It seems that Time has been leaking into the world of Faerie, making it not eternal. Of course, the son finds the leak and the whole world heaves a collective sigh of relief as time finds its way back to the world.

I wish. Time. I spend a lot of time thinking about it. Getting panicky about it. I was walking with my husband yesterday to go get the kids from school, and I find myself panicking because I was already two days into my one week off this year and I had so much to do. He was also panicking because he was under the illusion that he had plenty of time, but then things just kept on popping up and taking it away from him. It was a beautiful day- sunny and dry after a long and frustrating winter. We were walking, not taking the car, and should have been enjoying ourselves. Instead, we were worrying about time. Our pace picked up imperceptibly until we were almost running.

We all know that time has won at the moment of birth. We start dying the moment we start living, although we tend to ignore this fact and concentrate on the living part. So why do I fight it? Why do I get worried about it? Time ticks along no matter what I do with it, like an undetonatable bomb. How can you fight something like that?

Barring Thompson’s thesis that time is leaking into Faerie, we are stuck with the concept of time. So, from this day on, I am going to practice not getting upset about my lack of time. It will be a hard battle, as there are many things I want to do that unfortunately conflict with all the things I have to do, but I will try.

So, this is my official surrender. Time, you have won.I am now officially your prisoner. Do with me what you will.

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