Tick Tock. Your time is up!

tick tock 

tick tock 

tick tock 

Someone, anyone, please tell that demented clock that time has no essence to me, at least not now. Not today, not over the previous four years, and specifically all the years before that.  Nor will it mean anything to me tomorrow, or, for that matter, yesterday. 

It is just time. A clock with nothing better to do than tick. Tick all you want, for we live in two different worlds. You calculate yours, while I .. I don't know what to say now .. while I do whatever I want with mine, I suppose. I set my own rules and deadlines, I work at whatever pace I want and should I decide to sit doing nothing watching you waste your minutes and hours away, there is no one and nothing to stop me. Does this make any sense?  

I know. I am all over the place and time zones. But: Time. Means. Nothing. It is just a waste. Time waiting to be spent. It's morning, then afternoon, then night, then morning again. Talk about boredom and not having anything better to do. Like those people with children. They sleep to wake up to eat to puke to shit to be washed to sleep again to wake up to eat and throw up and shit some more, then get washed to sleep again ... you get the picture right? Oh the monotony! I am already yawning. 

I really seriously did yawn and stretch and am thinking of just curling on the sofa for the rest of the day and possibly staying there until the weekend. Or I could continue sitting in this comatose position, typing with one or sometimes two fingers, just like I have been doing for the good part of four years (The rest of the time I was doing other things, like curling on the sofa, watching TV, playing games on the computer, Xbox and Wii, and when I am hungry or am in a creative mood, I would cook. I do have a life, in case you are wondering). 

When I moved here, I had grand schemes. They were just plans. None of them saw light - but that isn't the point. I  was so keen to get out of the hellhole I buried myself into in Bahrain, which included cramming everything and doing all that I could sandwich in every 24 hours of every day. I thought I would relax for a few days or a few weeks - two months at most - to find my bearings and then leap into action. My plans for my time here included so many things, things I can still do if I really want to, but which I don't know how I feel about anymore. Among them were: writing a book, doing a PhD and having a baby. I also told myself that I would grab time by its horns, and not let it defeat me; that I would invest my time and make the most of it; that I would be productive and useful, enterprising and successful. 

And successful I was, in watching every year, month, day, hour, minute and second of that time squandered. Almost all of it. I worked to the minimum of my capacity. I sat on my own. I lied to myself and  said I was taking a break after a busy life in Bahrain. My excuse was that Canada is boring and there is nothing to do here; that all my friends and family are in Bahrain, where I will be returning and as such didn't need any more friends.  Almost four years, in a self-exile, with friends and family and everything meaning anything to me in Bahrain. And I alone here. I mean, I do have friends here of course - a former Bahrain couple whom I see once every few months, my landlady, whom I also see once every few months, and, of course, my husband, whom I see every day.  

And more successful I was in making this time pass - all 24 hours of everyday. At first it was exciting: I have the whole day to myself. For the second time in my existence, as the eldest child of seven, I am all alone in this world (I must admit that the first stint, more than 30 something years ago, lasted two years until my sister was born). Then it became depressing. Can I type that word again with a Capital D please? Depressing. Now can I type it again in ALL CAPS. Please? DEPRESSING. Then I got to grips with it. Time. And we learned to co-exist. I learned to slow down and it learned to speed up. So I have to cook dinner right? But it's 10am. And we have dinner at 7pm. So I learned to spend all the time between 10am and 6pm, thinking about what dinner should be. And then the next hour is spent preparing it. How's that for a plan? 

And now that I am so successful in pacing myself and know exactly how to manage my life and affairs properly and successfully, time rears it's ugly head and announces: "Your time is up!"

After all my patience, after sitting on you for four years, almost, is this how you repay me? You tell me, that I have pack, even the things I have never got around to unpacking, and return to Bahrain where tick tock will take a whole new life of its own and where I cannot remain a silent depressed bystander watching you and me go to waste every single day anymore? 

Seriously, go get a life. And read that ethics book while you are at it. You have been unfair to me, when I have given you all the chances and time in the world. I waited for 2006 to turn to 2007 to turn to 2008 and it's now 2009 and I finally slowed down to accommodate you - and now you are asking me to speed up and pack and return to the rat race? You certainly have issues and I have a sofa waiting for me. 

I know I have to pack. But it's a holiday in the US today and there's always tomorrow. And if tomorrow is wasted, there is the day after. And if that too goes without me realising how it went up in smoke, there is the day after it. It is not like I am leaving today, is it?