Time, time, time...

Yesterday we were driving and Lucy spied a bumper sticker that read:

Life is short

"What?!" She said incredulously, "Life isn't short. Life takes forever!"

Time is a funny thing.

When you're a kid, time seems like an endless enigma. At least to Lucy.  When you're a parent, time in general seems to fly. One minute you're holding a brand new baby, hopelessly in love and unsure that you can even handle such a responsibility and the next minute you're telling your ten year old to clear his dishes. Yet when you're a parent, though the weeks, months and years fly by so fast you can scarcely believe it, some days can go so slowly you find yourself watching the clock tick tick tick towards bedtime.

Coen got a watch in his Easter basket at his grandparents' house.  He is so thrilled, when I ask him what time it is, to be able to report. "Now I can constantly know what time it is!" He said in excitement as he strapped it onto his wrist.  I remember my first watch too.  It was a Mickey Mouse watch, Mickey's hands telling the hour and minute.  I wore a watch from that day when I was about eleven to when I was twenty-two.  I went from the Mickey Mouse watch to a Swatch, to a nice plain one with an army green band and a white face and black numbers.  That watch died when I was on the airplane leaving the country for the first time for Bristol, England.  I threw it away when it stopped and decided not to wear a watch anymore. Who cares what time it is?! I had thought.

This week I feel overwhelmed by time.  I had to work late last night. I have a board event tonight. I have to work late tomorrow night.  Our weekend is full.  And when I think of time as a full week of events, I feel like crawling back under the covers.  But when I think of it day by day....it's actually a lovely week.  Taking today separately, I don't feel overwhelmed at all.  I guess that's the trick.  Taking time as a minute by minute thing instead of imagining your week or month or even your life as an expansive block of time. That's just too much...and too little.

But right now.  Right now it is 8:45 a.m.  My children are in their classrooms, but that doesn't matter because right now I'm just me.  Sipping my coffee and breathing in and out and typing these words on a computer screen.  Trying to take my time.