Precious time

Time plays the funniest tricks on us, doesn't it? I mean, sometimes I feel like I have time, time, time, the luxury of a world where there is no urgency. Other times it feels like it takes off and leaves me hanging on in its wake, anxious to catch it up and harness it just a little. One thing I do know is that time here is precious and has an inevitable end point. But just because something is precious doesn't mean there's a need to squeeze it, to wring it out, to leave every day an empty husk. Life, my friend, is not an orange. Nor when it comes down to it, is it a box of chocolates. I suspect it's a little bit more like trail mix. Hopefully New Zealand trail mix with chocolate raisins and dried bananas as well as the occasional dried mango and coconut. For these things we put up with the pumpkin seeds and sultanas, and we can eat it in pinches or we can take handfuls, but we can always leave some for another trail.

Sometimes I write these things over the period of 24 hours or more. I've had a bit of an oh shit moment thinking about time and how it's used. Clarity has hit me and I realise that this wasn't who I was before Dave died. I was much more relaxed about use of time. I had even been known to spend an evening watching TV or a weekend at home. I know. Odd isn't it. But clearly there's an urgency to me now, and not logical but I realise time feels like it's running out, purely because Dave didn't make it to 47 which means on some weird level I've only got a couple of years to do, well, everything. So, no, I haven't stopped running. But I kind of want to. It's hard.

Even knowing this, even giving myself permission to slow it down, to smell the lilac (it's out in New Zealand at the moment), I somehow can't. I arrived in Lake Taupo this afternoon, meandered up the hill with the Bloody Big Bag, put up the tent and instead of chilling, which I could have done, having the kindle and all the food I needed, I somehow felt time was wasted if I didn't go down to the Lake. Which I did, had fish and chips and a beer and a meander. I'm only here for just under 48 hours. I didn't want to waste it. I'm trying not to be mental. Must try harder!

Because precious time is slipping away …