I just returned from 2 weeks in Ireland. A 2020 trip that became victim to Covid. Finally, time moved along far enough for me and my friend to get aboard a trans-Atlantic flight to fulfill that travel promise. This will not be a daily log of those days (I had a fabulous time!), but rather the dislocation of (once again), time and space (see May canvas blog).
I found the definition for “jet lag”: extreme tiredness and other physical effects felt after a long flight across time zones (Oxford languages), woefully inadequate. In fact the physical impact turned out to be much less disorienting than the mental and emotional. It is not just about being jerked into another time zone where 1:30am suddenly adjusts back to 7:30 pm as you land. Something happened during that 6 hour gain that, after a few days, drove me to a prone position on my bed, staring at the ceiling, my mind empty of desire or thought.
The space I traveled mentally seems so much more vast than the distance in miles. Maybe it was the anticipation of 2 years of waiting and now, all over! Or perhaps the “covid” years rearranged my perspective of my future. Or it could be, as I age, these abrupt changes in the 24 hour order of my day are not as manageable. I credit myself with not thinking about any summer “To Do” list during the trip, but now that I am “returned”, the wide expanse of the next 3 months seems almost unwieldy. I move slowly through a gauzy focus, trying to find a good, solid place to land from which I can begin to analyze, plan, strategize, execute.
However, I find I am in no hurry to move beyond this somewhat veiled state. Most likely a jet lag side effect, but possibly its about how time slows during the aging years, knowing we have lived more days than we have left (again, see May blog!). Sometimes this thought alarms me, but since nothing can be done about ever forward moving time, maybe, in my own way, I am trying to increase my moments here on earth, by living more slowly, gently; to be less demanding of filling my days to overflowing. To be more conscious of minutes and hours rather than days and weeks. This is a false narrative I know, since time has its own agenda, but I realize I can actually change the amount of time I experience in my personal space. Maybe it will feel that I am living longer. Heeding the words of Marcus Aurelius, “Embracing our mortality is the key to living fully”, I may not wrap my arms around my coming demise, but I can choose to live more thoughtfully, with simplicity, clarity, understanding and kindness.
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