the hands of time | Evening Light

I have a strange relationship with Time. It begins in the morning of every new day, when I wake before my alarm goes off. I set it for 5am, but it rarely has a chance to go off, I usually wake minutes or seconds in advance, and shut it off. 4:58 am, 4:52 am, 4:46 am; never even a moment after 5am, even when my alarm is turned off for the weekend. Strangely, I don’t rely on that, and failing to be certain my alarm is set and turned on generally results in a night of restless sleep, waking again and again to check the time. I don’t set my alarm for an increment of time that isn’t on the hour, the half hour, or more rarely the quarter-hour. It seems pretty arbitrary and more a matter of habit or tradition than any rational choice about an ideal moment to wake.

Isn’t Time rather arbitrary, anyway? I mean, the math bits and science bits are certain to be important to someone, somewhere…but, my subjective experience with Time often finds me winding my way back to ‘why do I put myself through this when it seems so…imaginary?’ I don’t have a comfortable experience with Time. I rush myself, too often. I pile expectations of punctuality on my demands of myself that result in bitter emotional battles with myself, or others, over some occasion of minor lateness – in the face of a lifetime of time-based brutality directed at myself. I’m rarely late by my own actions; it freaks me out. When circumstances or people ‘make me late’ I’ve been known to unleash an amount of emotion and temper that is most easily described as ‘desperate and enraged’ – an unpleasant combination. I’m sure the origins of my troubled relationship with Time is lost in the darkness of ancient pain, and a lovely Sunday doesn’t yield to further exploration. Not right now, when I’m having such a good time. 🙂

This morning I was thinking about alarm clocks, agendas, and time and those thoughts resurfaced later while I was meditating. I suddenly felt so aware of something I’ve fought for so long… the only time I really benefit from concerning myself with is…now. Well, hell… I have time for that. 😉

…some metaphor about time…

The first rose of spring has opened in my garden. It is just 48 days until my 50th birthday, and for some unclear reason 50 feels rather like ‘the middle of life’ – although I am hopeful about living well past the century mark. A beginning, a middle…and an end; I am wearing a long-favored, old black sweater, and I am considering today to be it’s ‘last day’…

‘Baby Love’ is the first rose to bloom in my garden this spring.

My old black sweater is an ordinary enough black sweater, of mixed synthetic fibers, soft and worn and comfy, with rather mundane cable stitch down the front, and quite large. I bought it some 15 years ago, during a career change, and a point in my life when I was heavier than I am now. A lot heavier. This is a size ‘3X’ sweater. It’s huge on me now, mostly pretty shapeless, and not particularly flattering. I’ve never cared about that – it has also been reliably comfortable, effortless to care for, and predictably rather invisible, in the sense that wearing it allowed me to fade into the background at a point in my life where anxiety and unpredictable temperament so ruled my experience that I appreciated having a way to hide from the world in plain sight. Now, though, life feels very different and I am less inclined to hide. I also feel…healthy, beautiful, and alive – and I’m ready to say good-bye to being so wounded and afraid of the world that only being wrapped in a comfy old black sweater feels safe and warm. Hugs are better. lol.

A sweater is only a sweater, after all… it isn’t a time capsule of memories and events associated with the wearing of the sweater, it isn’t the embodiment of who I am, or who I was, and it isn’t a cherished object of sentimental value clasped relentlessly by possessive withered hands frightened to let go for fear of losing beloved memories to the passage of time. (I may have once thought it was…) It’s just a sweater: too old, too worn, too big. It doesn’t fit me anymore.

I still like sweaters. I still like black sweaters. I even still like this sweater… but it is time to move on. Time to let go of some things that are not helpful to hang on to. Time to let go of things that get in the way of better things. Time to accept and encourage and nurture change. It is time for a new black sweater; sexy, fun, soft…and perhaps in a ‘slightly darker black’?

…Or perhaps not black at all. In 48 days I shall be 50, and I’m clearly not a little girl, anymore. Some of it has been rough, but I think it will be fine if I stop wearing black…beginnings, middles, ends…this is what 50 looks like through my eyes, reflected in my mirror, considered in the context of my experience.

…on the other hand… approaching 50: my right hand, my right mind.

Now is the Time

Life and Love and an Old Black Sweater

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