WHAT IS TIME?
As you might imagine, or maybe you wouldn’t if you had not walked in these shoes, having a diagnosis of cancer in any form, for any member of your household, makes you think about TIME differently than you may have thought before. That was my experience. I have struggled with the words to express how my thoughts evolved for a few weeks. I had a luminous moment as I laid in bed enjoying the short span of TIME between sleep and full blown awake recently. So here is my attempt.
In our early dating days, my boyfriend, now husband, occasionally serenaded me with a song made famous by Jim Croce, “Time in a bottle.” The opening line states, “If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do is to save every day ‘til eternity passes away just to spend them with you.” So very sweet. Jim died in September 1973. This song was number one on the Billboard charts in January 1974. He never witnessed the high point. Then I remembered Cher’s 90’s recording of “If I could turn back time.” She sang about finding a way to undo things of her past. My personal favorite song about time is Otis Redding’s, “Dock of the bay,” … “Sitting on the dock of the bay watching the tides roll away, wasting time.”
Each of these songs mentions different things that the singer wants to do with time. Croce wants to save it, Cher wants to rewind it, and Otis …possibly stop wasting it.
From my perspective, the line of Otis,’ “watching the tide roll away,” best describes time. No one can stop the ebb and flow of waves/tide. No one can stop time, nor bottle it, nor turn it back. Time is infinite, I am not. Time is limitless, I am not. Time can’t be stopped, held, saved, used up, time is uncontrollable. What is controllable as an individual is “ME” and I am finite, which means there is a beginning date … possibly a “best if used by date, and most assuredly an expiration date. None of these apply to time.
Time is time and as I have pondered it, I have shifted my thoughts and word expressions about me and time. I CANNOT – impossible to waste time. To waste something implies ownership and control, neither of which I claim about time. What I can waste is “me.” I am finite. There is a limited supply of me. When I am “sitting on the dock of the bay watching the tides roll away,” time is being time and not being wasted. I am wasting “ME” if I don’t find value in the sitting.
Every second of the day that I am awake, I get more choices of what to do with “me” in the time that I have in this universe than I can imagine. Will I sit and waste “me” away, will I ruminate about what the past “me” did or didn’t do, will I spend “me” wishing for more of what I don’t or could ever possess? You and I get to choose how we will use ourselves… for better or worse, either way time doesn’t wait. It can’t.
PONDER THIS THOUGHT— There is no such thing as a shortage of time.
L❤️VE this🤗
As you speak of cancer I remembered well when my mother had cancer and died. We have to enjoy every precious moment that God allow us to enjoy. I think God every day for all he allows me to enjoy at 64 and praying for more special years ahead. I think God that I‘m in my third year of retirement after 40 yrs of working. Now I get to do what ever God allows and I thank him over and over again. Enjoy every moment because time flies. ❤️
As you discuss time…Roy & I can’t help but appreciate the time we are spending together in France, London, and Amsterdam. As two cancer survivors our prayers continue to be with you🙏🏿