BEFRIENDING TIME

Time is a tricky alliance. It is always with us—stretching out before us in what I imagine as big loops and paths complete with periodic crossroads—and yet it also feels like it is slipping away from us as we walk its length over our lives. How can we befriend time so we can be in the present moment, hold the past lightly with appreciation, and look to the future with curiosity rather than judgment or expectation?

It seems like a big aspiration when I see it written out on the page. And yet, when I think about how I engage with the writing process, I can believe it is an aspiration that isn’t as far off as it sounds.

I talk about the concept of time with my book-coaching clients frequently. When you are writing, time can feel elusive. Some of my more common discussions center around finding time to write and not “procrastinating” when it comes to writing. I am using quotations here because I don’t believe in procrastination. I happen to think that what people often look at as procrastination in writing (and other things as well) is actually more about process than the act of purposely delaying or postponing.

I view time as a landscape of writing. The key to befriending the time landscape is allowing for it in your process. Writing is a practice. And any practice relies on some kind of process. What I find with myself and my clients is that ideas need to be courted. Creativity and inspiration need to be nurtured. When you engage in writing or any creative endeavor, you need to build trust in that relationship and that requires extra time and space. Ideas cannot be rushed and if you don’t give them the care and attention that they need, they won’t collaborate with you.

If I come up with an idea I want to write about, I rarely sit down and write that essay at the same moment. I like to explore and observe. I like to turn an idea over in my head for a while before I commit my pen to paper or my fingers to the keys. When I was a young writer, I thought that I was procrastinating, but really, what I was doing was engaging in my process.

My writing process includes a lot of pre-writing in my head. My favorite way to do this is to take a walk and dedicate that walk to an idea. This requires me to build in time for my process to allow walks in the woods or quiet moments of thinking as I stare out a window or sit outside in nature.

This friendship with time makes sense when I am talking about writing, and at this stage in my life, it not only makes sense but also feels easy and natural. But in this season of my life—away from writing—my relationship with time doesn’t seem as simple and easy. I feel tension and a push and pull with time. It feels fraught with expectation and control rather than the appreciation and curiousity I yearn for.

My daughter just finished her first year in college and this year has contained lesson after lesson of letting go, creating boundaries, and allowing newness to emerge in a space of transition. Time seems to sit in the corners of every room, memories lingering but also softening, urging me to give space for the next phase of life.

What if I looked at my life like I look at writing? What if I allowed myself to be in process in my day-to-day just as I allow myself to be in process with my writing? What if I gave myself some compassion?

I always say the writing process is the life process and allows us to touch our pain and suffering as well as our joy, purpose, and effervescence with self-compassion. I feel safe in the writing process because I have made it my haven. I have made friends with and nurtured my relationship with time in that context. What if I allowed myself to befriend and nurture my relationship with time in all contexts? What if I allowed collaboration and compassion? What if I found an internal safeness in my relationship with time?

I am changing and becoming the next version of myself every day. Time allows me to do that. Time gives me the gift of change. This new version of myself will be born out of all my moments woven together. When I contemplate the richness of this tapestry that is my life, my nature leans toward appreciation for what has come before because I would not be where I am without all of those moments.

All of these moments are leaving their mark, though.

When I see the signs of time on my face and my body, I am reminded of all that I have done in this life to come to this place. I wouldn’t want to change or postpone that passage of time.

When I embrace my daughter who is stepping into a friendship with me with each day that passes, I cherish all of the mothering I gave her to build the trust between us. I look forward with curiosity to the adventures we will have together as she steps into womanhood. I wouldn’t want to delay the pace of that relationship.

When I imagine my future and the woman I am evolving into I can be curious and excited even as I hold uncertainty in the same hand. I wouldn’t want to know all of the pieces of my story now. I like the freedom to explore.

Maybe I am closer to befriending time than I thought. Maybe the tension I feel is one I can lay down. Was this tension I have been feeling even mine in the first place, or was it someone else’s regret that I picked up somewhere along the way? I don’t need to hold time in a standoff. We have been collaborating all along. I just needed to give myself the gift of self-compassion to see how well we’ve been working together.

Photo credit: Image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay