Inconvenienced
Time is something we value. We plan for it, we try to catch it, we try to contain it. Time is a blink of the eye as much as it is a 10 hour work day. It moves at a pace that is both consistent and variable. It can carry the power to heal and it can carry the power to bring us to absolute frustration. We can wait, we can predict, we can hope…but only time will tell. There are those days we barely missed a ferry or the bridge opened right as we turned the corner. The commute where traffic won’t move and the highway is a parking lot of cars. The quick trip to the grocery store for that one item where the lines seem to be at a standstill. These are moments that press on own patience. Sometimes we might want to yell at anyone that can hear. Sometimes we might want to storm out or honk our horn to the never ending sea of cars. In those moments, I tend to see my time as more valuable than any logic. When in actuality, my life is pretty amazing and these slow downs are mere inconveniences in my day.
The honest truth is, I am fortunate enough to have time on my side. I might have missed an important doctors appointment due to maintenance on the bridge, but I was able to reschedule it. It was a small inconvenience in my week. I might have ran out of time while waiting in line at the bank, but I wasn’t late to my next client. I just had to move some to-do list items around to another day. Most of the time, I just want to get to the next place or the next thing. Most of the time, there is no real rush or need, it is just convenience.
When we take a step away from these inconveniences, there is a lot more to think about. The day I missed my doctors appointment, I ended up at a friends house with a group of women a generation older than me. We drank wine, we laughed, we hugged and we got to watch the most spectacular sunset. The day I waited in the slowest line at the bank, I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a very long time. Her smile, her energy, our conversation was all made available because I couldn’t run off to the next errand. We were held in place in that moment. If I look away from my phone. If I take away my need to accomplish one more task. There are little things that are far better than what I had planned. Retelling my story, replaying my day, I can change the way I view these moments. I can highlight the beauty in the unpredicted.
Even so, time is something I wish I could control. I need more time on a Saturday morning, I want my morning coffee and trashy TV to last twice as long. I need time to speed up on my Friday commute so I can settle into my weekend and enjoy time away. I need dinners with my minis to slow down, these evenings are fewer and that time is fleeting. I need my girls nights to go deeper into the night with no consequences to be paid the next day.
I will continue to throw my tantrums when time doesn’t go as planned. I will still be pissed at the car going 10 miles an hour under the speed limit. I will still be annoyed that I live on a peninsula and bridges and ferry’s are part of my travel plans. But I need to take a step away from these annoyances. In the middle of traffic, it might be an accident. In the line at the store, it might be someone struggling to pay for groceries. At the ferry, someone might be heading in for a life changing doctors appointment. All of the inconveniences that hold me back from the perfect commute or the most calming weekend, those might be the moments that will change someones life. My time is not more important.
Time doesn’t need to be something we own. Time is not hijacked by our expectations. We are all living in the same time and we all need time to move. Sometimes we might need time to give us another breath to heal. Other times we might need time to rush us into the next moment for the exciting adventure that awaits. We all teeter in these moments. Some of us need to move slower while others can’t wait for what comes next. When we move outside of ourselves there is probably another story that needs to be told, and that story might be worth listening to.