time

Last week I took my mom to the eye doctor for laser surgery. (Not a big deal, she assured me, but she wouldn't be able to see to drive herself home after the procedure because her eyes would be dilated. My dad decided to go with us at the last minute, and I swear we were not even five minutes from their house when their bickering started to annoy me so much that I told them if they didn't stop right then, I was taking them both home immediately. Seriously. I had to tell my parents to stop arguing or I was going to turn that car around.)

Anyway.

While waiting for mom to rejoin dad and me in the waiting room, I saw a brief story on one of the morning news shows (or whatever those morning shows are, now that TV news has become what it is). So. The story was about how we choose to spend our time. The expert in the story pointed out that everybody gets 168 hours each week. If we sleep eight hours each night (because everybody does that, right?) and we work 40 hours each week, we still have 63 hours to do with as we choose, and that was the expert's point: we choose what we do with our time, just as we choose what we eat. He (or she?) said that it's a good idea to write down how we spend our time (like a food journal) and then we can decide if we're spending our days doing what is most important to us. Sounded reasonable to me. Maybe a bit irritating, like a budget, but reasonable.

A few nights later, I dreamed that three of my teeth broke and after seeing a doctor, I was devastated to learn that the doctor thought I had AIDS and didn't have long to live. (With dreams like this, it may be easy to see why I don't sleep eight hours each night. There was more to the dream, but then, there always is, right?)

I woke up feeling more than a little disturbed after that dream. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was only a dream and I had not been given a death sentence. But still, it was surprising that my immediate thought in the dream, upon being told my days were numbered, was that I needed to do the important things and forget the rest. It was as if the clouds parted and I could see clearly that so much of what I do is wasted time when there are so many treasured moments that are so valuable and irreplaceable.

I decided to look at how I spend my time. I spend at least five hours commuting to work each week. This semester, I'm in class seven hours each week and I study at least ten hours each week. That leaves me with 50 hours. One whole week of work time plus 10% overtime to do the things that matter the most.

When I remember the ways I've spent my time in the last week--with loved ones and on holiday and shopping and gardening and of course eating and cleaning and scratching dogs' ears--well, I'm feeling pretty good about time management.