Wednesday, January 30, 2013

TIME


How important is your time? It’s everything, right? Well maybe not as important in the grand scheme of things as say, LOVE or relationships or global warming. But it ranks right up there and overlaps with all the critical parts of existence. Right?

I wish I had come to this realization a long time ago. I guess I was so busy doing or not doing that I didn’t stop to reflect. You can’t get it back. I know there are a lot of things that fit this criterion but there is one really tragic truth. You can’t recover missed opportunities. You can’t undo wasting precious moments on things that don’t matter. So, first of all, No Regrets.

There are a lot of hamstery things that we can’t avoid. Laundry, cleaning, cutting our toenails, ad infinitum… But when there is a choice, and we have this more often than we think…jump off the treadmill of expectation. Your own and other people’s. Maybe you don’t have to go to that meeting about neighborhood drainage problems; maybe you don’t have to have dinner with people who make you want to stab yourself (or them) with a fork. Maybe you can wait to go to the grocery until you are really out of food.

I’ve decided it’s time to spend my time, as much as possible, in doing what gives me joy. Having lunch with people who make me laugh. Ordering take out and not feeling guilty about not cooking. Waiting to do the bills until they are really due and reading a great book or a trashy one instead. Listen to music I love. Not be so OCD about square corners when I change the sheets. I used to joke that what it will say on my tombstone is:

She Did Laundry.

Now I hope it will say (if I even have one):

She Had Joy. She Took Back Her time.

It’s Time.