Everything is not urgent...

My complicated relationship with time.

Something happened in my 40s, something that started from the best intentions. I became hyper aware of time.

In fact, my time became much more structured. My mornings are an elegant dance of what I can complete in a span of 45 minutes. Packed gym bags, lunches made, breakfast made, kid sorted, dressed, pressed, and out the door between a ridiculously slim 5 minute margin because I’ve figured out exactly how much time it will take me to be at the front of my daughter’s school when I want to be.

And if it were just me, I would make each morning my bitch.

But there’s a wrench in the plan - my 9 year old daughter is SO unbothered by time. No matter how much passive aggression there is in my consistent reminders to her as she’s doing the only thing she actually has to do in the morning (get dressed), she is not rushed. I could be out the driveway, car in drive, rolling by. And she will still walk at a glacial pace as if she has nothing but time.

I can’t help but wonder how she can be so flippant about time. Is she blessedly unaware of the responsibility of showing up on schedule? Does she just relish in my anxiety? Or does she already understand there’s no real reward for rushing through life? Perhaps it is me that should adopt her principle.

Karolina said it best today: We rush children through childhood like there’s somewhere better to be. There isn’t. This is it.

It isn’t just my mornings either - the urgency has spread.

Particularly lately, everything feels urgent. Politically, socially, economically.
Many of these things ARE urgent (and under attack), but that doesn't mean they are within my control. And I can't hold them anymore. Anxiety has just become a constant companion now, humming in the background like some old refrigerator sound that I don't even notice any longer. The weight of it is crushing me.

There's also an unspoken fear that set in somewhere around my 20s: slowing down meant falling behind. It's been the default principle running my schedule. But if the whole point of being efficient is to create space, why am I still filling it with endless things I 'need' to do? No matter how efficient I am, I don't seem to create more time for myself. Like Parkinson's Law, the space just opens up for more things to do.

In my infinite wisdom, I seem to be missing the slow, unmeasured time that I used to enjoy as an adolescent. Laying in the grass without the constant buzz of an iPhone, noticing the exact way the light peaks through the curtains in the morning, tasting my food - not just gobbling up my meals to get to the next thing - but to really relish every bite as if it was a private conversation between me and the chef.

I can remember as a teenager everyday after school, taking time to lay in the sunlight cast by the afternoon sun creating a warm patch of carpet in the house. I’d lay there for an hour or so, just feeling that warmth, unbothered by the fact that I had hours of homework in front of me.

I don’t yet know how to find this as an adult with more responsibilities and tasks. Can the peaceful time be prioritized and let everything else naturally filter out what doesn’t really need to be there?

In some cases, time will still need to be a factor. But I am starting to question just how important any of this is. I’m willing to bet much of it fits in the nice-to-have category.

Because if indeed everything is urgent, then nothing really is.

Artwork: Olga Klim