Let's Go, Jane!

I’ve always been an early bird. I wake up early in the morning, and I’m early to nearly everything. I’d rather be 10 minutes early and sit and wait in my car than be 10 minutes late and have to rush around. I don’t mind wasting time, but I absolutely hate having my time wasted. 

I come by my time issues honestly. Growing up, we would ask our dad if he was hungry and he would look at his wrist and say “in about an hour.” We once took away his watch on a family vacation to get him to relax, and it had the opposite effect.

When the kids were young, my favorite part of the day was the first hour of the morning, when I was awake and everyone else was still asleep. The house was silent. I could drink my coffee and think and plan my day without interruption.

My boyfriend and I are an interesting match in this regard. I’m convinced that he experiences time differently than I do. He seems to lose whole periods of time. It’s like he hits a time warp and all of a sudden an hour has passed and he’s still trying to get out the door. I need a t-shirt that says “Waiting for Carey.” When you’re with someone long enough (we just celebrated our one year anniversary!) you learn how to interpret what they’re saying. If he says he’ll be over at 6 pm I now autocorrect to 7 pm. We make it work.

There are advantages to his approach, I’m learning. It’s no fun to be stressed and feeling time pressured. There have been a few times lately where I have taken his lead and we’ve been late for things. But not super late, and we weren’t even the last to arrive. We also had a relaxed and enjoyable day leading up to that point, so I can appreciate that in some instances his approach is actually better. But I’ll keep being early, most of the time.

I had a fair amount of free time this summer, but now that grad school has started back up and my internship is going, I need to manage my time wisely to ensure that I get these weekly blog posts written. I like being busy, I prefer it. I like having structure to my days. I’m most productive when I have more to do than I have time to do it in.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” -Mary Oliver

As I enter into my 50s, I’m finding that time is starting to feel more precious. Who knows how much time we have left on this earth? I may live well into my 90s, or I may have only a decade of adventures ahead of me. The real question is how do I want to spend the time I have remaining, and with whom? As they say, only time will tell!