[2021-08-10] Free From Time

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Last night my wife woke up in the middle of the night. She was wor-
ried and anxious, which in turn woke me up; I rolled over and com-
forted her until she felt okay enough to go back to sleep.

We keep an digital clock on top of the chest in our bedroom. To see
it, I need to roll to my right, but my wife sleeps on my left, so in
order to face her, I have to turn away the clock. When my wife fell
back asleep last night, I realized that I hadn't once looked at the
clock, and I had no idea what time it was. I decided to go back to
sleep without checking the time.

I can't consciously recall the last point in my life when I had no
sense of the current time and I had no desire to find out. I always
pay very close attention to the time, and I know most other people do
too, usually out of necessity. Almost everything about my life is
dictated by the clock: when I wake up, when I eat, when I go to work,
when I leave work, when I take medicine, even when my wife and I go
out on dates. And when I wake up in the middle of the night, usually
the first thing I do is look at a clock, either on the nightstand or
on my phone.

My wife could have woken up at 11 PM. She could have woken up at mid-
night, or 1:30, or 3:30, or fifteen minutes before my morning alarm
sounded. I simply don't know. And that lack of knowledge was, stran-
gely, liberating. It was a wonderful thing in that moment to not
worry about how much sleep I had left or if I'd have a chance to rest
sufficiently before beginning my morning routine. I just let it go. I
didn't stress about it. And I think I slept better as a result.

My wife knows what time she woke up last night, but she hasn't told
me, nor have I asked. It's not important. What matters is that for
just a moment, I was free from the pressures of time.

If only my boss could see it that way too.

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[Last updated: 2022-01-05]