Change of Time.

There are all sorts of studies that tell you how long you need to do something before it will become a habit.  Some say 21 days, others 30.  I've always thought that 90 days was the ideal timeline; 3 months sounded like a reasonable length of time before one got used to something.  And yet, it has been twelve months, almost exactly one year since I finished graduate school and received my hard-earned MBA, and I find that I still marvel at the notion of spare time, a free evening, of taking my time.

Part of me is amazed at how quickly I initially adapted when I went back to school while maintaining a full-time job.  It didn't take me long to understand that every single minute was going to count, that I better elevate my time management skills to a whole new level if I wanted to survive.  I multi-tasked like a fiend and as I reflect back on those two years I'm sort of amazed I did it, that I survived it.  Perhaps it is proof of how fixated on schedules I became that now the opposite adjustment, the gaining back of time, still surprises, delights, and even shocks me.  I still have to remind myself that it's okay if I take my time heading home, if I decide to walk a little further on a nice spring night, for I have no team call that awaits, nor do I have a paper due.  I'm allowed to wander through a weekend with no set plans, to linger over a spontaneous brunch with a friend, to actually read the entire Sunday paper on a Sunday, to follow no agenda other than the one I craft in that moment.  There is some sort of trade-off I suppose, as my new job post grad school takes up more time and is on my mind more than any other job I've ever had.  Yet I still have time that is all my own, to do with as I alone please.

I sometimes catch myself, trying to make time this malleable thing, an object I can control to my liking.  Slow down the days and moments I love, fast forward through the bits that make me anxious or sad. But oh, time! You refuse to play that game.  Things are about to change in my life, though I have no idea exactly how, when, or where.  I know I'm running up against a clock with my beloved apartment, I know sooner rather than later I need to make some decisions about what comes next in this life of mine.  It's ironic isn't it?  To have sudden found time and also to be running out of time.

So I count my seconds, I treasure my minutes, I try my very best to soak up all of my hours, my days, particularly in this known realm, never wishing her away.  I'm learning - I'm trying - to invite the minutes in, the let them stay for their full sixty seconds before their gone, never to return.