It’s odd, this living somewhere else, half on vacation, half not. Time starts to feel different, look different. Counted not by hours of work or even by hours at all, but by sunrises and sunsets, hunger and fatigue, calm and wind. Most days, I don’t really know what time it is until about 10am, when I login to get a bit of work done. Time is something we are moving through, rather than something that restricts us. Binds us. Tethers us to the words “productivity” and “success.”
Even here, though, we settle into a sort of a routine, but a routine that is far removed from the “have tos” and “shoulds” of the day. Coffee and a beach stroll with husband and dog. Maybe a paddle board or snorkeling outing if the water is smooth. If it’s windy, we kite in the afternoon. If it’s not, lots of reading and journaling. When the sun sets just before six, we’re cooking dinner, or having beers and deciding where to go out. After dinner, maybe some chatting or games or reading, and usually by about 8:30pm we’re starting to get ready for bed. I slip in some work in between the wind and the water and the food.
Things from “real life” that haven’t found us here: The TV has been on just a few times, to watch something specific and then turn it off. I still haven’t put Instagram and Threads back on my phone. I’ve run twice in three weeks. I haven’t been meditating or writing much.
What I’m saying, is there’s this odd balance I need to strike with time. On one hand, I want to bottle up some of this vacation time and bring it back with me, to feel the halcyon ease and the freedom of not knowing what time it is, to structure my days based not on what I feel I have to do, but what the wind is doing. On the other hand, letting myself move through time is starting to feel a little, well, passive. Like a hallucination, where I’m in danger of slipping fully into this black hole of unstructured time. Or like those lost souls in purgatory, wandering without purpose, trying to get somewhere—wanting to get somewhere—but stuck in this liminal space.
Maybe that’s why, the other night, I found myself in my calendar, looking ahead to when we’re back home. As much as it feels like a dream to wake up each day and think, “What do I feel like doing today,” being in this liminal space for too long starts to feel like I’m in languishing space. Doing the absolute bare minimum, as it turns out, doesn’t feel very satisfying. Important for rejuvenation and a break, absolutely, but not for feeling like I have much of a purpose. And not purpose in a capitalistic, cog-in-a-wheel kind of definition, but a personal fulfillment kind of definition.
As it turns out, I want to write every day, both journaling and towards a project. I want to work with people on hard problems. I want to take care of my body and mind. I want to connect with loved ones and my community. And the way the world is, our society is, means I can’t do these things unless I am deliberate about carving out the time for them.
Because, waiting until I “feel like” doing these things, sometimes means they won’t happen. Sometimes, the action has to come before the joy. There have been days here where I haven’t especially felt like kiting, but here’s the wind, it’s time, I have the resources I need to do it. And then, once I’m out there, I never regret it, and I’m a different kiter now than I was when I arrived, simply by devoting the time and getting out of my own way when it feels hard.
So that’s how I will balance my relationship with time: recognizing it as not my enemy but the element that is necessary for me to do the things I want to do, that it’s non-renewable so I need to use it when it’s here, that it’s tempting to move through it rather than harness its power, that it’s assumed by society that we should be able to measure what we do with it but that we can define what we measure—I would like to measure love and compassion and challenging/taking care of myself and making the world a better place, rather than money and prestige and entitlement and productivity.
And so with all those things I want to do: I have the time and the resources I need, and once I do them, I’ll never regret it and be a different writer/runner/friend/wife/etc., simply be devoting the time and getting out of my own way when it feels hard.
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