Time Well Spent

      

“Time is precious.”  No one disputes this and I often think or hear someone else say, “I need more time in the day.”  “If I only had another day (week, month) I’d be set.”  “What a waste of time that was!”  Time seems like an elusive commodity, and we never have enough.  Even while on vacation seeing amazing sights or sitting by the ocean in a beautiful resort, my mind has traveled to thoughts of how much time I have left until the vacation is over.  Or conversely, if I’m doing something like jury duty or dental work, I hope it moves along quickly and I’m relieved when the time has passed.  Sometimes I look at this as wasting my time, taking away from what I “should” be doing.

       What I “should” be doing is usually arranged by me, agreed to and put on my calendar, or at least a to-do list.  Of course, I deviate all the time from things that aren’t appointments or commitments.  Years ago, while formulating the Lazy Woman rules, the to-do list lost its power over me.  I realized that I made up the list so I stopped letting it make me feel like a failure when I didn’t get everything done.  If the things that don’t get done are important, they just carry over to the next list.  Somehow I manage the time-sensitive things like mailing the taxes and making the deposits and feeding all the animals.  The rest gets done in a somewhat more haphazard manner.

       
Sometimes it seems to smack me in the face, this racing time, like my life is a runaway train.  I get the sense that I’m not keeping up with all I want to be, or do, or see.  Then I can have a somewhat frantic response of needing to figure it out, get busy, make a bucket list, plan for our retirement, “get our affairs in order,” so to speak.  We have begun cleaning up our estate plans and at least have a list of loose ends that need to be tied up in that area, but what I really seek is to slow down my inner experience of time.  I don’t want to be frantically trying to make the most of my time, with the remaining time that I have left!  

       Recent musings about time:  My husband, J.P., has been playing phone tag for several months with an old friend he hadn’t spent much time with in several years.  They had discussed getting together for lunch, but never booked it.  One morning last week J.P. had three appointments cancel and he had a rare wide-open day.  He called his friend and arranged to come pick him up for lunch.  As he described it to me that evening, his day was full of surprises.  The first thing he shared is that his friend, our age, is in poor health with what can be lumped into the “old age” category – trouble walking, trouble seeing and trouble focusing.  He’s not driving anymore and has way reduced his activities.  The five hours they spent together enriched J.P.’s life in several ways.  He said he was overwhelmed with a combination of gratitude for his own good health, compassion for his friend and a sense of commitment to being in his friend’s life on a regular basis.  He said it was as if time was suspended that day.  He never felt rushed, never checked his cell phone and had a sense that he was in the perfect place all day.  Mind you, this is a man who usually has to monitor his cell phone at all times!  He had shifted his priorities and was full of gratitude, with a strong sense of purpose.  Time well spent.

       Later in the week, I was on my way home from my morning work out, lunch with my ladies from the gym, and senior day at the car wash.  I had lots planned for the rest of the day - working in my yard, in my house and at my desk.  I had come almost all the way up the hill from town when the phone rang in my car and it was J.P.  He was in Beverly Hills with a broken down truck and an afternoon filled with appointments.  He needed me to come and get him and drive around while he finished his appointments.  Oh, how I wanted to get out of giving up my plans, and having to drive around L.A. in afternoon traffic. 

       As I turned my car around and got back on the freeway, my mind was swirling with all sorts of thoughts like “what if I had an appointment or important plans” - which I didn’t.  I was cranky and full of self-pity as I negotiated the traffic.  Fortunately I caught-on to my wallowing ways, shifted my focus and turned the radio on.  The trip across town went fairly quickly considering the traffic, thanks to my husband’s directions (he’s a walking, talking map of L.A.) and I drove straight to where he was stranded.  We finished the rest of his appointments with me driving and him directing and talking on his cell phone.  We didn’t get home until after 7:00 but we did it together, with some conversation and even a little laughter along the way. 

       I am so blessed that I can usually catch my mind before it drags me into a nightmare of resentment and negativity.  I spent my time differently that day than I had planned.  I “lost” the time I had allotted for certain chores.   Who knows if some of them will ever get done?  Oh well, at the moment, I can’t even remember what they were, but I had a happy day with my husband, and have a renewed and fresh appreciation of how he spends a great deal of his time, providing for the life we enjoy.  Time well spent.