Time Indefinable

I’ve been musing today about time. How there never seems to be enough of it. How it seems to move so quickly these days. How it’s already 11:30 in the morning, it’s already Thursday and it’s already the end of January. How it seems nearly impossible that 20 years have gone by since I was in high school.

Time is particularly obscured for me since I began my new job this month. These days, Thursday is Sunday and 6pm is ‘first thing in the morning’. It’s both liberating and befuddling to be on a different schedule than the rest of the world. Waking up in the morning and not having to rush through the streets with everyone else feels deliciously naughty. Going to work when everyone else is heading home is a bit deflating.

Anoher thing I have noticed about my new job is that no matter how early I seem to arrive - everyone I work with is ALREADY THERE! What time do they get there that I’m always the last to arrive? Are they on a different schedule? And for the past few nights, I’ve been the first to leave also, guiltily saying goodbye why they all tap away at their keyboards. Maybe, I think to myself, they just have more to do since I’m new. Or maybe work is a higher priority for them. That’s not to say that I don’t take work seriously... I appreciate my job and want to do it well, but I also want to have a life, to get to bed, to possibly see my husband before he hits heavy REMs.

In Iran, when I had little else to do and a cold and empty apartment waiting for me, I used to work all the time. There was always something to do in the office and the empty apartment only reminded me of being alone. So in I went at 9am and at 8pm I was often still there. My Iranian colleagues, who had homes to look after, family members to take care of, children to cook for, likely wondered the same about me that I wonder about my current colleagues.

Which just goes to show that life is a question of perspective.