From Distance to Time & Back
A piece about growing up and changing perspectives.
We were driving up the 101, and I was sitting in the back seat of my mother’s black pearl Subaru Outback. The hot car kept me awake as the colored crayon patch on the grey fabric seat next to me held the forefront of my mind. In my white dress, I sat as close as I could to the door, leaning on the window, creating as much distance as I could from the blue, red, and yellow puddle that was starting to glisten as it melted for the hundredth time. I don’t think I was looking forward to my first communion, but I know I certainly wasn't going to get primary-color beeswax on my clothes.
“Are we there yet?” The barn was one of the furthest places from our home that did not constitute a road trip, and was a part of our overall life. On our way, I watched the large fields, farms, and vineyards sprint by as my father drove down the highway in the left lane. He was getting ready for his role as a godfather to two boys who would be at the barn early with their heavily religiously involved mother, who, as far as I knew, basically made church happen.
I knew our church was not conventional, given that we used an old converted barn as a gathering space, and that most Sundays just happened in a living room about 25 minutes from my house. Also, we called it Grail Circle, not church, and the Buddha was referenced as much as Jesus. I did not understand most of the stories and the gospel we practiced, but I knew Buddha was not one of Jesus’s disciples. I still resented church like I imagined most kids did. Taking up the first half of my Sunday, I very rarely felt connected to what was going on. Despite my lack of interest or understanding of first communion, I knew it was something all the kids did in the group, and I still just wanted to be there, not necessarily face-to-face with the primary colors on the bench seat next to me. We could not get there fast enough.
My parents’ best friends from the city were coming out, and I knew that they were there to support me and become my godparents, parents’ friends, who I guessed were now somehow going to be my friends too. A relationship I did not understand then, but understand now.
As we arrived and parked under the small canopy of trees, I looked up at the big white barn and remembered there wasn’t going to be any easter egg hunt, our usual barn visitation reason.
As a child, everything was about the destination. I measured everything by distance. Are we there yet? The anticipation of being somewhere, doing something, getting there was the hard part. I just wanted to get there. Even with hesitations or stubborn resentment, I lived in the moment of the destination, always looking forward to what came next in the day, week, or year.
I am sitting in the car and heading south on the 101; 36 minutes into my drive with another 21 minutes to go, according to the GPS in my car. It’s November, and the sun has set, and everyone’s headlights have turned on. As we are all commuting home at 5:38 pm. Sitting behind the wheel of my car, I have autopilot on, and my car is creeping through the masses with everyone. I cannot believe it takes me an hour to get to and from work every day. How many more minutes? I think to myself. I look to the bottom corner of the literal iPad built into my Tesla Y. 19 minutes, it reads, as I stare at the redline I’m sitting in, 2/3 of the way into my commute home.
As an adult, or what I consider acting like one, my thoughts, behaviors, and actions are constantly consumed by time. I decide to go to the gym, and what dictates my decision is not if I want to work out right now or be there, but how long it will take me to get 3 miles up the freeway on a weekday evening. How long will it take me to get there? How much time will I waste on my way there? Those thoughts paralyze me. Sometimes I will even waste some more minutes contemplating whether I should bother getting in my car. On the contrary, if the traffic is light, but I would actually prefer to stay home, I’ll change and hop in the car because it won’t take me much time to get there. The fear of not having enough time can paralyze me, and time dictates my life.
At some point, the measurement of my lifetime changed from the excitement of the destination, and succumbed to the dreadful dictator of time. When did that happen? It could have been in high school when I had to start delegating my responsibilities of school, sports, and friends. In college, I had to lean into the whole adulthood mindset, learning about the inconveniences like taxes, health insurance, the phone bill, and making my own FastTrak account. Maybe one heartbreak or loss pushed me over the edge, and I started to forebode what painful thing I would have to suffer next. Social media constantly reminds me of all the things I am not doing. If I think about it for a moment, I really don’t want to be at Coachella, but I am not spending my time there like everyone else. Fuck. I should be at Coachella.
Something shifted. Maybe the tectonic plates, or maybe the chemistry in my brain. Probably the latter, but that feels like the former for some reason.
Measuring a lifetime down to every second in the day becomes all-consuming, and I find myself chasing my own life like I am trying to grab the string flying away attached to the balloon of my future. In the last two years of my life, I have found myself stuck at the doorway, door wide open, but my feet glued to the floor. Time and sure, anxiety have kept me there; distance and the destination can change my narrative.
A shift in perspective. If you are measuring life based on the destination, and not the time it takes you to get there, the car ride itself becomes a story of its own. Whether or not primary colored wax is threatening your sanity. The destination keeps you present. When time consumes me, and I am thinking about all the other things I theoretically could be doing, like going to Coachella, I forget about why I wanted to go to the gym in the first place, and the joy of the destination is lost. As I have marinated in this concept for about a year now, I have begun to practice a new, or I guess old, perspective. The distance you travel keeps the glass half full and the future abundant. The time lost on the way there keeps you on the sidelines of your own life.
I want a job I love, a home to call my own, and individually named chickens in the yard. If I think about how much time it will take me to get there, I will miss everything that happens on the way.
I think about my next destination, my afternoon walk with my dog is at the top of my list. The distance it takes me to walk is not dreadful, and the time I am spending walking is not haunting me.
A note to self and readers: Time is important, especially a lifetime. How you choose to perceive the present and immediate future is how you guarantee the opportunity to look back on the past and be grateful for it. Well, at least remember it all.
