Wait, wait. Let's start that again.

So. Two+ weeks into 2013 and I still feel like I'm not quite ready, not quite mentally there for the New Year.  The very first day of January started out all bright and shiny and squeaky and new; life took a quick glance at it, nodding its acknowledgement, and then promptly proceeded to hurry up, moving just as quickly as ever with its laundry list of the things that needed to be urgently - go faster! - done.

Lately I've felt like time has become this all powerful, totally mysterious force - the kind of thing that must always be acknowledged with a capital letter - Time.  It encourages us to bow down and praise it's glory while simultaneously acknowledging that it's slipping away, when all I really want to do is figure out a way to slow it down.

The other night, as I walked home from the T after work, I was, for some reason, thinking about how decadently long winter break used to feel when I was a college student.  Weeks upon glorious weeks of just being home with my family, visiting my high school friends, returning to the life I had led for 17 years before leaving home - minus the school bus and homework and the 7:25 homeroom bell for high school.  What a thought; that I had so much time to squander in between semesters that I honestly don't even remember exactly what I did each day or quite how I spent my free hours.  Or, when I lived in London at age 22.  Yes, I worked at a pub, but on my days or afternoons off, I had nothing - absolutely nothing to do - except wander, play tourist, and wander some more.  That winter in England was the first I'd been out of school and I remember the sheer delight of walking into a book store and knowing I could read whatever book I wanted.  No syllabus, no mid-terms, no papers, no grades.  It pleased me to know end to recognize that I could simply pick up a book I was interested in...and given my free time then...decide to read the whole thing in one sitting should I so choose.

These days, when speaking of free time, I'm continually compelled to "do more with less."  I am a list-maker.  I find now, with every hour precious, that is has become a rather common habit of mine to sit down on a Friday morning or afternoon before a weekend, and write out all the things I could or would or should like to do over a weekend.  Usually I count it as a successful weekend if I've crossed off even a third of my "wish list" for I am often overambitious with my planning.  I also, let's be honest here, can't stand wasting days or - of course - free time.  And yet, I don't like my free time to be so planned that I don't have any time for wasting either.  It's a delicate balance, one I haven't quite mastered, of knowing just the right amount of plans to make...there's the going big part of free time...and then, just as special, there's the knowing when to just stay home.  

Which brings me back to the whole start of this post and how 2013 has already hit the ground running, barreling out of the gates before I could even hang up my new Parisian wall calendar on January 2nd.  If this is the year where my intention is to focus on my heart, well then, she deserves time too. 

Today, I found myself in one of the whiniest, grumpiest moods I've been in in a long while.  Now part of that mood was due to the fact that I fear I've strained my wrist and my poor left hand was throbbing for most of the day.  Physical pain aside though, as I sat in my office typing away, I sat there trying to pinpoint exactly why I was feeling so frustrated.  Then it hit me.  It'd been days since I'd did anything physical - no yoga for a week (in the hopes of mending my wrist) and no running for days.  Add to that the fact that the last time I did run, Sunday afternoon, I felt sluggish and sloppy for the two miles I managed to squeeze out of my legs before returning home, defeated.  I've also neglected this blog for more than a week.  I've learned before - over and over and over in fact - that if I don't write, I can't clear my head.  If I don't make time to work through the thoughts, feelings, and observations I've been making through my days it's like there's an energy that has nowhere else to go, nowhere else to travel to.

And so.  A reminder here, at 16 days into the New Year, to myself, to my heart.  In this age of so much noise, so many opinions, and so many instant gratifications, I still do best when I silence all of that chatter, that background white noise, and I take the time to make time.  For me.  And my beloved, hard-working, ever-beating heart.