The older I get, the more a red eye flight stinks. I had a great time back in sunny SoCal but the price to be paid is fatigue. The fact that I couldn’t sleep on the plane, combined with the readjustment to time zones and the initiation of Daylight Savings time just the week before, means my body just doesn’t know what time it is. Not to mention my mind.
Being so screwed up by a man-made invention like a clock makes me reflect on all those times in our lives when we let TIME rule our lives. We get up at dawn and rush to work (mustn’t be late!!) and ignore the absolute splendor of a sunrise. We work late and drive home in the dark, having missed an opportunity to have our breath taken away by a scarlet sunset. A dear friend struggles with a divorce or illness and we impatiently look at our watch while listening over the phone. We live for a brief vacation but once we are back and re-engaged in our lives or jobs the wonderful images in our mind disappear like a chimera. At the end of a long day, a child’s painstaking recital of the playground drama is enough to make our eyes roll. And we rush out the door in the morning, juggling coffee cup, purse, briefcase, car keys, umbrella…..never stopping to wonder if skipping the moment to say “I love you” on that day might be our last possible chance to say those words.
We forget that life is more about the moments filled with beauty or the connections with those we love than about the lists of things to do or meetings to attend. If we bottled up all that time we spent commuting, meeting, arguing or stressing what are we left with? But if we unbottle that time and spend it volunteering, hugging, or greeting the morning, imagine the difference it would make in our lives.
