Time is Money? O Yes!

Last summer I became interested in currency. I’m not sure what sparked this interest, only that for a month or so, I viewed most of my interactions as currency exchanges.

While Francs, Dollars, Pounds and Liras are great, these currency types did not inspire me. What turned my artist’s head was currency on a grander scale– Currency as an exchangeable source and means of symbolic value.

Dollar bills are just the beginning. We all have our currencies. Most of us have many. Some popular (and general) currencies include power, beauty, love, sex and time. While some of these “currencies” possess literal value, they all insinuate a value that is above and beyond.

Michael Scott's currency is love. If people love him, he feels that he is good.

For example, while I may not give a hoot about money, I secretly hoard my face’s ability to stop traffic (I cannot really stop traffic. This is just a fictional example)–and see this ability as a measurement of my worth. Meanwhile, you may appraise yourself based on the amount of people under you in your work environment.

More recently, while pregnant, I began to lord over my time like Scrooge over his piled coins. I feared that my future baby would take all my time away for himself. My book-in-progress would never get done. The poor hunk of paper was doomed to be forgotten–abandoned midst the rushed chaos of diapers, breast pumps and spit up rags. This fear caused me much anxiety which caused me to shout a lot at my husband, cry into my pillow, and bite off my nails.

Conversations with strangers did not help. I cannot tell you how many people screwed up their faces with sympathy when I told them I was expecting.

If time were coins, I would have looked like this.

“Sleep now, because you wont again for about a year!”

“You better read that book you’ve got there fast, cuz when that baby comes, you’ll be lucky if you can read the back of a cereal box!”

My time-anxiety flourished in the fertile hormones housed in my pregnant brain. As to hedge an all out panic, I decided to slow down and analyze the viability of my fear.

So time, because it represents the freedom to write, is a very important currency of mine. But how do I spend it? Over a forty-eight hour period, I charted how I used the coveted subject: both how I spent it, and how I saved it. Below is a pie graph illustrating the results. Note: These are pre-baby statistics.

As you can see, I wasn’t exactly writing nonstop to begin with. This exercise reminded me a lot of a money management activity–one in which you realize you blow a large sum of your pay check on menial purchases like lunches out, sodas, and fancy coffee drinks.

After seeing these results, I sheepishly calmed down enough to realize that before I could legitimately fear (and complain about) not-having-the-time-to, I’d better be making the most of what I’d already got.

And what of the post-baby scramble? I am happy to announce that thus far (one month plus some weeks into the game) I am able to both read and write.

Comparing the two graphs, it is obvious that my sleep and quality time with husband have taken the hardest hits, but, for the most part, my time-fears were unnecessary.

Not that saving these writing and reading minutes has been easy. If life before Henry was lived in free verse, it is now about as structured as a sonnet (with occasional playful and loose deviations). You free spirits may baulk, but structure is not a bad thing. Working within set boundaries, patterns begin to emerge, bringing forth rhythm, rhyme and pleasure.

By placing Henry on a flexible schedule, I’ve had to (by rote) place myself on one, as well. This personal scheduling was not purposeful. It was an accidental result of trying to rein in Henry’s anarchic naps, meals, fits, poops, etc.

When Henry naps, I do my thing. I know that I have around an hour or two, so I best not squander it. And, would you believe it, I’m actually being more constructive with my time, now, than I was previously.

What this post may lack in philosophical and social inquiry, it offers in practical advice: Instead of lamenting your lack of time to do this or that, take another look at the minutes you do have and how you are spending them.

Know thyself!–Those old Greeks wrote at the temple of Delphi. It’s an ancient adage I try to follow in almost everything.

I spent the winter of 2007 in the Alaska arctic. There, I encountered several friends with terminal illnesses. This coupled with the twenty four hours a day of darkness led to a minor break down. My break down centered in a very real, very poignant fear of death.

All this talk about Time, brings me back to that terrible anxiety. Perhaps this was Fear and Time to the extreme–After all, unless you are overly concerned with the status of your afterlife, Time is really what you fear when you fear death: Time stopping, time slipping away, time’s brevity. Tic toc. Tic toc. How relentlessly it plods along.

Having Henry in my life (and the consequent scheduling) commands my presence in the moment. The most consistent advice I’ve received from mothers of all ages is this: Treasure every moment, because it all goes by so fast. And it does. Not just for me. For everyone.

Already, Henry is holding his head up, laughing, smiling, and too big for his pajamas. I want to be here with him. He isn’t taking my time. I’m giving it to him, freely, willingly, with joy. And yes, there is still time left over for other pursuits!

I’m not so afraid of death anymore. I’m too pleased in the present to notice its passing.

The white rabbit was too afraid of being late to live in the present moment.

While having a baby has changed the way I value time (no more extravagant and wasteful spending) it has not left me impoverished for extra minutes. Being a mother and an artist means being a little more scheduled–but this scheduling provides the discipline I previously lacked and needed. It provides me the motivation to sit at my desk with our without the inspiration of the muse. It gives me more time–in the midst of less. But best of all, it presents me with the intense present moment in all its fleeting glory, and this time around, I’m not afraid. I am delighted. Let time pass; I am here to watch it.