Time

Time, especially around the holidays, is a funny beast. On the one hand, it seems like there is not enough of it to get the things that need to get done, done. And yet, somehow, there always seems to be time for surfing the internet, trolling the forums, and browsing the blogroll. How is the elusive time thing alotted in your head?

Personally, I try not to worry too much about time. Yeah, I get the kids to school (on time, mostly) and I manage to feed them around the socially accepted feeding times, but when I am not working, I tend to the clock (and subsequently the calendar) very little. Time takes on an ethereal quality, something that lingers on the edge of my consciousness but doesnt take up much of my energy.

I began thinking about time when someone asked how I ever managed to find time to do the things that I do. And the honest answer is, I dont know. I dont know how I can raise three kids and make and send handmade Christmas cards and sew blankets and buy extra presents for underpriviledged families. I dont know how I can complete scrapbooks and read novels and learn new recipes. I just do. And, perhaps I do it at the expense of other things, I dont notice. I do have a wonderful husband who is unfettered by social conventions and is, not glad necessarily but willing, to do the laundry and the dishes, who likes to cook and will hold the baby. I am an extremely lucky one.

I sometimes fear going back to work full time in the new year because I will miss drifiting from project to project and being afforded the luxury of attending to my children as they need me. I will miss not having to look at the clock.

And yet, a quandry. Yes, I do not live by the clock, but I cherish all the moments that time counts, all the memories that we pack in between the seconds and the hours. And as the year draws to a close, we often look back on the months and the days and the hours and wonder how the time has gone so quickly. My little one is already 6 months and it feels as though only yesterday I was holding him as a newborn. How has it been 5 years since I got married? How did 10 years pass after Sarah's death? Time marked in other ways suddenly feels frightening and tumbling.

And here I sit, late in the night, the soft sounds of sleep like a coccoon around me. My son lies in my arms as I type, as my babies have so often passed the nights with me. I will miss this flexibility, this haze of timelessness that exists within the four walls of my house. It is time that is mine alone and I savour these decadent minutes before bed.