Here’s to Time.

I’ve always been fascinated by time, I remember as a little kid watching our grandmother clock it wasn’t in a case, and hung on the wall, but had weights and chimed the hour and half-hour, listening to the constant ticking and watching the second-hand move, listening for the point every 30 minutes when it would click and whirr and chime to mark the passing of yet another chunk of the day or night. I would imagine the whole world spinning because of this clock methodically marking the time as it passed by.

My beloved Nana was the one who introduced me to the other sorts of time, when she’d say things like “it wasn’t the right time” or “it was just their time” I understood she didn’t mean clock time, and as I grew I could feel the different times that she had referred to…sometimes things didn’t feel like the time was right, too soon or too late for example.

I was interested to learn about the ancient Greeks’ two different ways of marking time: Chronos and Kairos. Chronos is the quantitative one, the time we measure and mark in our everyday lives. Whereas Kairos is qualitative. It measures moments, not seconds. And refers to the moments when the world takes a breath, and in the pause, before the exhale, lives can be irreparably changed. The moments that shape us and live on in our memories for years to come.

This made sense to me, and as I looked further into it, discovered that most ancient cultures had a word for Kairos. Even today different religions still use a word with similar meaning to refer to the “exact right moment” within their practices and rituals.

So, it occurs to me, after most of my life has been strongly influenced by Chronos (well, duh) slowly Kairos is becoming more significant to me, and of course, as a woman, I also have the bonus of the “moon time” every month. Whether or not we care to acknowledge it, we are multi-dimensional with so many different times we observe within us and around us. I have come to the conclusion that our egos are defined by Chronos, our hearts and souls go by Kairos and our bodies go by moon time. It’s just a passing theory – don’t panic if you don’t agree.

Anyone who has kids or has been close to them has witnessed the duality of time, how the days are so long, but the years fly by. And all you can really do is love them, be the best version of you that you can be, and hold on for the ride.

So we are on this continual search for meaning and getting the most out of our time, I personally find that writing can stop or at least capture time, often better than a photograph, the words I choose and pictures I paint with those words have always been important to me. I’ve kept journals since I was about 11, and found them comforting and cathartic. But it has only been recently in life I have felt pulled to share my writing and perceptions with a wider audience. And like all quiet tugging by soul or intuition, it will not be ignored. No amount of excuse-making will make the feeling go away. I must write, and share. Because I just have to, this feeling deep inside me compels me to do it.

I have lived long enough to deny my heart/soul thoughts before, on multiple occasions, and there have been times when my ego’s actions were useful, to protect me from whatever perceived threat I believed or perceived. But that time is not now, not anymore, years of ignoring oneself only lead to unhealthy escape habits and coping mechanisms. Why are we so afraid to follow our crazy ideas and to go all-in? I know there are many reasons, all of them pressing and vital in the moment.

But those limiting self-judgmental thoughts are not for me, not anymore, not about this.

It is time. It is my time to share my writing and put it out there. It’s time for me to do the things I know I am capable of. (Albeit slowly and cautiously…but I’m still doing them!)

After going through so much turmoil and heartbreak over the last chunk of my life, and taking comfort from seemingly inconsequential random places, – a song here, a short conversation there, a kind and genuine thought shared in passing, a chapter from a book, a snippet of overheard conversation, I am aware of a shift within my own perception and understanding of the world and my place in it. We can never fully comprehend our ability to ease the burden of someone else, and there’s a good chance you will never even know when you have.

I’ve come to realize, that it’s never too late and we are never too old. And I choose to embrace that. No matter the time.