Watching the Clock

Time.  That’s the prompt from Kate Motaung at Five Minute Friday where we write for five minutes and post, without editing or over-thinking.  Ha!  Me?  I’m the queen of overthinking.  Watch this!

Time. My grandma used to say a watched pot never boils. Watching a clock is even worse.

Time. My grandma used to say a watched pot never boils. Watching a clock is even worse.

Time.  I roll over yet again and glare at the clock.  It’s only a couple of minutes past 11:00. I had tried to get to bed earlier than at times this week because I’m so tired and here I am still awake. I could still be asleep before 11:30 and I have so much to do.  My mind replays the parent-teacher meeting (me the teacher, her the parent) which takes my mind to another parent-teacher meeting (him the teacher, me the parent).  I replay that for a bit, because that’s what I do.  My mind races through what I need to do and what he needs to do.

Time.  11:10.  It’s hot in here.  I roll back the covers, trying not to disturb my sleeping husband and begin to make a list of what I have to complete in the bathroom overhaul tomorrow.  As the list grows so does my restlessness.

Time.  11:20.  Bathroom break.  I stretch my legs that are doing that twitching thing that happens when I’m so tired.  Man, I wish I could think of what to write for FMF.  I’m hungry.  Nope.  Back to bed.  My mind replays (without permission) the death of a little boy from cancer and spins out of control to my own little boy who beat cancer but still fights left-over battles that started way back then.

Time.  11:40.  Grr!  I hate this watching the clock thing.  I will my eyes closed and picture a tropical island with a freshwater waterfall and pond where there are no jobs but to pick bananas, swim in the surf and watch the sunset from under a palm tree.  Doesn’t work because that reminds me I didn’t water the plants at school and I don’t teach tomorrow which means they’ll go all weekend.

Time.  Oh.My.Word.  It’s 12:00.  Again.  It’s the third night in a row that I cannot shut my brain down.  I glare at the stupid clock again.  My mind jumps across all my children and monitors their lives and wonders what I should be doing as a mom to facilitate in the best direction.  From there worries reappear (even though I have amazing children) and the mind skips to money Do you realize that in 3 years I won’t have any children at home?  Well, that’s assuming they keep up the directions they’re heading.  What if they don’t?

Time.  Who in the world though of the word Time as a writing prompt.  There is nothing to say about time that hasn’t already been said.  Time in a bottle.  Tick-tock.  Sunrise, sunset.  There is a time for everything.  Blink and they’re gone.  Time.  12:32.

Time:  I wish I’d had more time with Dad.  I always wanted to travel back with him to his hometown of Boston and have him show me around the tenements where he grew up and I always wanted to take the stories I grew up hearing and write them down and hand a book to him as a gift and have him read it and be amazed that I could remember those details.  But I waited.  I waited so long that even had I written it, he no longer remembered the stories.  No more time with Dad.

Time.  12:54.  This is just wrong.  I should relax in my savior and I should be able to set my mind at rest and determine to go to sleep.  It’s cold in here.  Bathroom break, more leg stretches.  I need to start exercising.  I giggle to myself.  Probably not at 1:00 a.m.  Maybe tomorrow after I sand the bathroom.

Time.  If only I could think of something to write.  Something profound.  Remember when time didn’t matter and all I had to do was sit up in my beautiful sycamore tree and watch the world go by below or watch a world develop in my book?  Remember when I could dig in the dirt and laugh with my friends and my worst job in the whole wide world was picking up after the dog?

Time.  1:40.  Lord.  I need sleep.  I have so much to do.  I also need to write but I’m too tired.  Time. Lord, isn’t it time for you to just come?  Of all the “Time” subjects I can possibly think of or write about, that’s the one.  No more sorrow, no more death.  Time with those I love.  Time with Jesus.  Time to relax and time to rest with my Savior.

Time….

Time…

Tim…

Ti…

T…

Lord, isn't it time for you to just come? #FMF #time via@caregivermom Click To Tweet