This week, evenings are noticeably darker, the mornings graciously lighter. This week, most Americans, myself included, turned back our clocks an hour for daylight savings time. A manipulation of time to save energy, daylight savings is a gift of an extra hour’s sleep and at a price. One some of us even double pay in this perpetual pendulum: in autumn, with overtired children who have no care for time, and again in spring when we must return what we took, springing forward as the northern hemisphere spins towards summer.
Time taken. Time lost. Time spent and time wasted. As someone who works to live from a place of abundance, time has me puzzled. Because nothing feels scarcer than time. As a working mother to three littles, a partner, a sister and daughter and friend, as a human in this wide world I never feel like I have enough of it. In between wakeup and the frenzy of getting everyone out the door, meetings and the work between meetings, pickup and the endless merry-go-round of meal prep and cleanup, there’s not much left. And still, at the end of a long day, I stay up instead of going to sleep, simply to recoup some of my own time.
What I take away from this all is just how structured the days can be. At the end of a day, or in those spare moments when my only responsibility is to myself – I want to push back on this structure. Call it revenge time or simply free time, I stay up too late, I cycle endlessly through apps on my phone, I check my email, all for the quick thrill of doing something mindless, doing something for myself. Though it meets the need for doing something unfettered and for myself, this often feels unsatisfactory, too. I feel stuck sometimes – rushing through the day for that glimmer of free time that leaves me wanting more.
When our days are long and structured, boundaries around our time, even our free time, do not always feel good. Sometimes they are about as satisfying as eating your greens (though I personally love kale!): you know it’ll feel better in the end, though you’d really rather eat that glistening sugar cookie. In Tressie McMillan Cottom’s interview of psychiatrist Dr. Pooja Lakshmin on her book, Real Self-Care, Dr. Lakshmin explains: “Real self-care is based on this term eudaemonic well-being,” meaning “a life that is built on meaning and purpose. . . . [R]eal self-care is about making those choices aligned with what you actually care about. And . . . that’s usually hard.”
How does this show up for me? It means an ongoing check-in on what’s most important to me – what are my priorities and how are these showing up in how I’m spending my time? Some nights it truly is flipping through a stack of magazines, and that feels ok, sugar cookie and all, because I know I’ll come back to my greens, too. It also means showing some self-compassion and understanding when I find that how I’m spending my time is a mismatch for what I’ve named as important. What I’ve learned is that when I don’t stay in my own boundaries around my time, I feel like I’ve wasted time. Alternatively, when I’m able to stay in my boundaries around time, time doesn’t seem to matter as much and I find I can be more present.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, my daughter and I stood together at the kitchen counter mixing a batter. We were making zucchini muffins. “Why are you rushing Mama?” she asked. I paused, unsure of what to say, because I was unsure why I was rushing. “This isn’t my favorite part,” I said, now scooping batter into the muffin tin. “I like this part,” she replied, and then: “what part is your favorite?” Another pause. Another breath. Another moment like the last. I had never considered the answer. Not on this day, anyway, when moving through each familiar chore I felt the weight of what was next, unable to step into what was, which in that moment, was baking with my daughter. Which, then, reminded me of my grandma. The way she would fold that last bit of flour into the dough when my arms were too tired to stir anymore. “This is” I told my daughter, “mixing the dough in when you can’t anymore.”
. . .
I wonder what would it look like to consider time as something other than finite? Can it be both finite and something closer to abundant (or from the Latin root, something closer to fullness)? How might we experience this measure our lives, lives which have a marked beginning and ending, as abundant?
Time, I think, can be a both/ and. Time can be finite & infinite, fleeting and ever-present. Maybe to hold both is to let go. Of judgment, for one thing, of how I spend or hold onto time. This time will not be forever; it is what is today. What I’m learning about time is that it is one measurable, a tool, and as a tool, I can pick it up and set it down as I find useful. To let go of fear, too, that there will not be enough. This fear, for me, tracks the fear of losing all that I hold most dear. And it can get in the way of truly experiencing what is a blessing today. My youngest saying “bubbles” as she tastes the fleeting combination of soap and water in the bath; the way the morning light falls on the redbud, golden and still holding onto a few heart-shaped leaves; the satisfied sighs of my dog asleep at my feet as I write this. To let go of the fear of time, I practice letting go of the fear, naming gratitudes, which brings me back to the present. And maybe, free of judgment or fear of time, I can appreciate time for what it is, the fullness of this present moment.
for reflection
How do the choices you make around your time align with what’s most important to you?
What is something that you would like to acknowledge for yourself today?
for the library
Pooja Lakshmin, Real Self-Care (Penguin Life: New York 2023) (available/ public library)
The Ezra Klein Show, “Boundaries, Burnout and the “Goopification” of Self-Care” (Sept. 19, 2023) (Tressie McMillan Cottom’s interview of Pooja Lakshmin) (available)
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