chronomentrophobia

Recently, the phrase, "I bookmarked your blog URL so I’ll have something enjoyable to read" has replaced the phrase, "You look beautiful" for most enjoyable words to hear. As it turns out, one way to demarcate the passage of time is to recognize what compliments make your heart soar and when. "Cool Tamagatchi" turns to "Nice Ass" which turns to "You’re the kind of person I want to spend my life with" and "Your baby has your eyes" [For those of you who do not know what a Tamagatchi is, you are missing out on countless hours of weird fun]. Still reeling from the fact that I am bookmark-able, I began thinking about other ways in which the passage of time is measured. 

Jonathan Larson could give you an exact number of minutes that occur within the Earth’s orbit around the sun, while others might measure their time by a series of stagnant moments that aren’t Friday yet. Before I could tell time well enough to grasp how long a span of time felt, my parents would create units I could understand. "We will be leaving in about as long as it takes to watch Saved by the Bell" [30 min.], for example. Yet even after I could construct meaning from looking at a clock, minutes and hours never seemed to possess great importance to me. As long as I can remember, my measure of time has been marked by Septembers and Junes with a few months of freedom interspersed. Life as a non-student, however, brings a unique perspective to the complexities of time. 

I have found, that as an adult, time is often measured by the entrances and exits of certain individuals. Those who were once as integral to your quotidian activities as breathing may seem a distant memory, while someone you never thought you would see again is [three years later] the best thing to ever happen to you. It would be most helpful if some sort of omniscient formula existed. We could input the names and characteristics of those in our lives and a specific calculation would determine if it's worth our time to cultivate worthwhile moments or let them tell their story walking. But that wouldn’t be life at all, would it?

Because even after the most calamitous friendships or relationships have ended we are socialized to believe it was not a complete loss of time; there is something to be learned. That “something” can be anything from I’ve learned only weirdos are attracted to me to I’ve learned I am actively projecting a signal that it is okay for weirdos to talk to me. Whatever the case, someone somewhere recognized that to keep us all from a perpetual state of depression because of all the misused time, that it would be a good idea to pretend like something good can come from it. As a Pollyanna optimist, I would like to believe no time is lost time. Sure, my life might not be enriched by a “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” marathon, but in those four to six hours, I made a conscious choice and stuck with it. That’s just good character.  

How time is measured and what we find essential is evolving just as we are. There is still the occasional Sunday when I feel a heart palpitation trying to remember if I’ve finished all my assignments for the week. And come each May, I’m still surprised to find myself not relocating from a dormitory. But even with these conditioned temporal elements, maturity has brought with it a few valuable lessons.

1. My body has somehow been able to ascertain how long just thirty more minutes feels while utterly asleep and sans snooze button.

And

2. Although I am fully aware that those who I care for today might not find their way to forever, I would not be completely living if I did not live and love as if the rest of our lives was the only unit of time that existed. 

~carter