Stretching Time

Time.

That elusive, elastic, unmanageable, unwieldy, unpindownable thing.

Everyone I know wants more of it.

Except, of course, when they’re in the doctor’s waiting room, the DMV, the bank, the post office during the holidays, the grocery store the day before the super bowl… Then we wish it would just speed up so we could get the heck out of there and get on with our lives already.

I don’t know anyone these days who doesn’t think they could use just 4-6 more hours a day. Or, failing that, then just a couple more days a week.

Recently, I tried an experiment. I decided I was going to try to stretch time. Because I admit it, I’m one of those people who just needs more.

Stretching time, or breaking it?

So, I decided I would get up an extra hour earlier to start. I’d use my extra hour for my own writing. Then, at the time I normally wake up I’d go upstairs and wake up the family and get everyone ready for their days.

In a stroke of pure time stretching genius I also let my kids convince me that they were old enough to walk to school alone. Shazam – another 30 minutes added to every day!

Then, in a moment of raw zealotry I thought, well heck, I can also squeeze in an hour of work after the kids go to bed. I can do my revisions then, or critique that manuscript that’s been staring at me from my computer for weeks, or I’ll finish that editing job and get it turned in.

I can do this. I can stretch time. I am God, hear me roar!

And that’s when it happened. I didn’t roar. I snored.

Getting up at 5am isn’t stretching time, it’s just rearranging it a little. Now instead of blacking out from sheer exhaustion at 10pm, I’m out at 9.

And working after 7 – yeah right, I don’t even have a brain left by 7pm. Seriously. In the place where my brain should be is just this tingling blurry buzzing sensation.

By seven about the only thing I’m good for is a snuggle on the couch for an hour or so and then another thirty to sixty minutes of reading in bed.

I tried critiquing the other night, but I was too tired and grumpy to be helpful. Every time I hit a snag in the story I just wanted to hurl it across the room and scream. I couldn’t think anymore, I just needed to be carried away somewhere new, somewhere nice, somewhere with adventure, somewhere people use spell check before asking others to read their work.

So, my conclusion is that you can’t really stretch time. It’s a finite thing. Even if we could stretch time itself, we can’t stretch our brains and bodies to match.You might be able to do it for a day, a week even, but then – total collapse.

Rearranging time though? That’s a different story, and it’s a good idea to try it. I get way more of my own writing done now that I have my morning hour where everyone leaves me alone and I haven’t yet had to face my “Today” list. (Like a to-do list, only everything on it actually has to be done today.)

That extra thirty minutes my kids have given me in the morning is great for cleaning out my inbox and organizing my thoughts and plan of attack for the day.

But none of it means I actually have MORE time. Because, believe me, after 15 hours of “go-go-go” I’m done.

Stick a fork in me.

I can make my clock tell me any time I want, but I can't make it give me all the time I need.

 

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