“How long is your now?” is such an odd question. It’s become one of my favorite questions to ask. The response always comes with a pause to think, stirring up the panic inside to push the boundaries of time, somehow making it expand so you can provide the best answer, whatever you consider an exceptional length of time. By the time you think about your now, it’s essentially already in the past. Defining now is like asking you to paint the rain; it’s impossible. But you can get creative, you can make it mean something. There’s no wrong answer; however, what would your ideal answer be?  

Time itself is ubiquitous and ambiguous. It isn’t something you can hold. It’s invisible, yet you witness it as changes happen around you and within you. No element on the periodic table creates it. It isn’t something you can stop, fast-forward, or rewind. Yet, it’s something that keeps us structured. It’s something that connects us universally, regardless of all our differences. Paradoxically, everyone lives in a different perception of time. I wonder how you experience it.  

The idea of “now” wasn’t something I could wrap my head around, even though we use it in everyday language. I lived for what was ahead, and when I wasn’t thinking about the future, I was reflecting on the past. The emotional numbing I developed to survive also made me physically numb. It prevented me from seeing and feeling the current moments I do have. It prevented me from absorbing information and transforming it into a memory. I’m talking about the moments between the ones you enjoy and the ones you wait for. These moments in between blur together because they lack significance. Moments that could have meant something if I had lived in them, not simply let them pass me by. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. There’s no going backwards. This isn’t a game of chess. Time is a perpetual gift that keeps giving, and it’s what we do with it that changes its worth. If we choose to ignore it, time flies by. If we pay attention, it somehow crawls, and a minute feels like an hour. That hour becomes an opportunity. This is the power of perception. This we can control. 

For years, the word “Time” played in my head like a broken record on repeat. At first, I ignored it. I was young and naive, and I felt I had endless time to do whatever I wanted. As a child, adulthood felt so far away. By the time I reached my mid-30s, I found myself angry at hearing the word “Time” because I couldn’t understand the message I was meant to receive. I was annoyed and in a rush to figure it out so it wouldn’t keep filling the space in my head that could be used for something else. I didn’t give it the attention it deserved, so life flew by. I let the moments muddle together, and now I’m trying to figure out how the hell I got here. I’m trying to repair the attention I didn’t give it, hoping for a reversal that will extend the time I have left. It doesn’t work that way. Time’s unwavering gift remains unchanged. It provides a constant. There’s no retaliation. It’s unconditional. I have the choice to become aware of it and really immerse myself in it. I have the option to give time a unique meaning. When you say time’s a thief, you’re blaming something else. Despite time’s persistent offering, it was you who robbed it blind.  

What I needed to hear wasn’t the word “Time” itself. It was the act of a broken record playing, trying to lure me into paying attention to it, to sit with it, to accept it, to see what’s happening right now. If I really listened, put my hand on the surface of the record player and felt the reverberations and the noise floating off it, I would start to hear the whisper of a song I hadn’t heard before. Every time I tuned in and noticed it, there would be a new song waiting for me. This was how I learned about joy.

I decided to start a blog again as writing brings me joy. In what I believe is the busiest time of my life, I find it hard to sit and write a novel, but writing snippets of things that come to me feels more doable and hopefully still leaves a mark.

This doesn’t mean I don’t have a story to tell someday. There’s one in my head, but for now, this will do.