I don’t have time.
And it’s not a snappish, back-off line.
I don’t have time.
And it’s not the all-encompassing terror of life passing me by.
It’s not the fear that I may die out before I’ve lived, and it’s not the murmur of years in my ear.
I don’t have time.
My father stopped by the other day. Typically self-involved, stop-what-you’re-doing-I’m-here-now. My first instinct was to ignore him. I was in the middle of work, I couldn’t be bothered. Then, I thought, I don’t have time for these mind games. And I will not feed that confrontational, angry part of myself any longer.
I stayed with him a while, and made allowances for his paranoid, self-absorbed, dismissive self. These are not anger words. They are him words, they are how he is, as I observe him from outside that place of anger and recrimination that’s already kept my soul too long.
My father was not an involved father. He is not a good father. He is not, in my understanding of the word, even a father. And because of that, I can no longer give him my focus. I can’t spare time for the things that will tire me, or make me angry, or extenuate my energy. I can’t afford that any more, and it may sound presumptuous at 24, but I just can’t.
I’ve thought about it a bit. I wanted to see if this was still my angry child-self wanting to hurt him somehow for not being there, but it wasn’t. I don’t think so. It was realizing that he is someone who is small, small in spirit and in kindness, and I can’t engage in that any more.
It’s not me being angry.
It’s not me being sad, or hurt.
Well, maybe a little sad. He has a very destructive, put-down energy, and that always makes me sad, in everyone. But now, for the first time, I can safely say I’ve grown enough to know how to wrap myself in a protective veil. I know how to keep such energies at arm’s length. I know how to take a step back, and not let it drag me down with it.
I am in charge of my energy, and what I direct it towards. And for me, the past months have been a question. So many questions. Where do I put my energy? Into the things that drag me down?
No.
Into the realities that might’ve been?
No, because I won’t know them in this reality.
Into broken people who try, by putting you down, to fix their own brokenness?
No.
The truth is, I feel these things, these relationships, as shed weight. I have this vision, this obsessive imagery of shedding my skin, of discarding everything of my past that was not essential to who I am and who I’m becoming, because like unnecessary weight, they used to slow me down.
And I can’t be slowed down anymore.
While he talked, I noticed about my father a very stubborn refusal to be aware of himself, of the energy he was projecting into the room, unto others. And I think it’s good practice to try and keep aware. I’m very careful about that, at the moment, about what I say, and how I phrase things.
I realize I’ve only limited energy, limited impact, so I better make it count.
Do I want to be someone who projects good or evil? Am I going to be someone who puts other people down, in my own smallness, or helps lift them up? Every day, every word, every breath is a choice in that direction. And when I first realized this, it was of such magnitude it almost drowned me. Everything I say has the potential of great impact.
Will my next sentence be negative or positive? Will it infuse you with sadness or light?
I want to choose light. I want to choose the positive, and the good. I want to focus my attention to helping others shine, and to shining myself.
That’s what I mean when I say I don’t have time.
I no longer have time for bullshit, or small-mindedness, or cruelty, or materialism. I have no time, nor space in my life for jealousy, or envy, or greed, or hatred, or proving, or enticing, or stomping on other people. Not when there is so much potential in me, and in those around me.
If one conversation with someone who shines bright can uplift my mood for the day, what can ten of those conversations do? What can a whole life, lived surrounded by such people do? And what difference can it make, for me and for those around me, if I choose to be one such person myself?
This is a response to The Minimalist community #TravelLightTuesday prompt. I love the idea, and I hope it fits, somehow, somewhere. My first impulse is travelling through life, but maybe a more terrestrial kinda travel is meant? If so, apologies, and thanks for always challenging my mind.
