I have not made peace with time. She has haunted my life like an overbearing mother, one whom I spent 30 years trying to defy, manipulate and disown. Because she made me feel a stranger here: Time, the arbitrary and cruel mother, I, the rejected child. Yet, the whole world moves in accord with Time, myself excluded. So my greatest fear is permanently slipping out of time, unnoticed and forgotten like the lost toy a child never wanted in the first place.
Such animosity is not as bizarre as it may seem. Time and her devices torture humanity. We strap these things to our bodies and fill our homes with counting machines. We spend our days chronically fixated on 'the time'. And forever wanting to "be 'on time'". I, too, have spent half my days attempting to fit my maladjusted self into the measured minutes and hours of civilized society. Dutifully, I tried to discern how many units it would take to get there, to do this and to finish that. But I could never manage it. I always got the amounts wrong. Because no two minutes are exactly alike. They are not the same! Otherwise one could explain how it only took 30 minutes for me to leave my house yesterday morning but today it took 48? There is no explanation for this anomaly, hence my enmity with time.
The war began long ago, likely declared in the womb. I was born one month early. Not by my own design however, the doctors did it because we were twins. So I entered the universe too early and since then have been too late for everything else.
This war with time has cost me. I never knew how expensive it would be.
***I've been reading a lot of novels lately. It's part of this new relaxing thing I'm trying. And because of my twice a week 6 hour commute. But I had to put a novel down tonight because the whole first chapter was the day in the life of a woman with lots of friends, four smart kids and a goodlooking husband. Yuck. The point is that many of the books I have read in the last few months weren't great. And they're giving me an itch to do something that's better. So I'm letting the idea of writing a book mill around my mind. I even came up with a whole scenario for a fantasy novel--my trashy genre of choice. But I'm just not in the mood for it.
After putting down the offensive novel about the happy woman I picked up Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut. I was so impressed with his voicing. It's always distinctive and authentic. Far superior to most everything else out there. While pausing my reading to consider the genius of Vonnegut I was inspired with a beginning of my own. The above few graphs are what I came up with. Please keep in mind that it is after 1 am and I am on antibiotics and prescription pain meds for my kidney infection and/or stones and/or structural problem--diagnosis pending the ultrasound.* Also, it still needs working. But, from the glow of my pooter screen and the snowy streetlight outside, I'm fairly pleased with what I wrote. That will all change tomorrow but so be it and good night lovely readers.
Wow, it just lightninged and thundered amidst the snow. The flakes are all glommed up onto my window screen so I can barely see out of the bottom pane. Cool. This is supposed to be a big blizzard.
*I walked back to the nasty clinic this afternoon but I took a Ritalin first so I would have greater impulse control and not leave before it was my turn again like I did yesterday. It was better in there today with fewer people. I saw a doctor and peed in a cup. I need more tests but he gave me drug samples. Then I walked home in the snow because the clinic cost me all my cash. But that's ok because I like snow.
