Seven Minutes
I run my life by timers.
Not because I enjoy structure. Quite the opposite.
Without one, I will disappear into a book. I'll decide it's the perfect moment to reorganize the drawer where we keep batteries and birthday candles. I'll notice the hydrangeas need watering. I'll answer an email because it will "only take a second," which is perhaps the greatest lie I have ever told myself.
Mostly, though, I use timers because I have an optimistic relationship with time.
I consistently believe I can fit more life into the next thirty minutes than the laws of physics will allow.
This week, I noticed something about myself that I can't stop thinking about.
If I have seven minutes before I need to leave the house, I feel rich.
Seven minutes feels expansive.
I look at the timer and think, Perfect. I can read one more chapter.
Or unload the dishwasher.
Or deadhead the roses.
Or fold the towels.
Or make a cup of tea.
Seven minutes feels like abundance.
Five minutes feels completely different.
Five minutes doesn't suggest another chapter.
Five minutes says, You should probably put your shoes on.
This makes absolutely no sense.
Nothing meaningful has happened between seven minutes and five.
I have not suddenly become late.
I have merely crossed some invisible psychological border.
I began paying attention.
It happens every time.
At seven minutes, I start another task.
At five minutes, I start becoming the person who is leaving.
Somewhere in those missing two minutes, the future quietly takes ownership of the present.
The timer isn't measuring time.
It's measuring ownership.
At seven minutes, the time still belongs to me.
At five minutes, it belongs to wherever I'm going next.
The grocery store.
Pilates.
Coffee with a friend.
An appointment.
A meeting.
The remarkable thing is that I surrender it voluntarily.
No one has knocked on the door.
No one is waiting in the car.
Nothing has happened except a number on a screen changing from seven to five.
Yet somehow, I've already left.
Physically, I'm still standing in my kitchen.
Mentally, I'm halfway to the car.
Children have a completely different relationship with time.
They don't stand in the backyard wondering whether there's enough time to build a fort before dinner.
They build the fort.
Dinner arrives when dinner arrives.
Somewhere along the way, we stop living until and start living before.
Before the meeting.
Before school pickup.
Before Pilates.
Before dinner.
Before the flight.
We become people who are perpetually putting on our shoes.
I've done this for years.
I've sat through beautiful dinners already thinking about cleaning the kitchen.
I've read books while thinking about the laundry.
I've walked through gardens thinking about emails.
I've had conversations while mentally composing the next conversation.
It's astonishing how often the next thing steals the current thing before it has even arrived.
This morning, my timer said seven minutes.
I looked at it and thought, I've got loads of time.
I read another chapter.
The next thing I knew, the timer said five.
Suddenly, I was late.
It was the same kitchen.
The same coffee.
The same book.
Only two minutes had passed.
Somehow, they had changed everything.
I have a feeling those two minutes have been trying to teach me something for years.
I just haven't had seven uninterrupted minutes to figure out what it is.
~Danielle