Time
Monotony
I feel like i’ve lived most of my life on autopilot.
During the week, I would go to work, go to the gym, play some games, and go to bed. On the weekends I’d play Belegarth or Jugger, get into Virtual Reality, dance, and sleep. Occasionally, something exciting would happen. I’d travel, learn something new, meet someone, and those memories would stand out. The rest blurred together.
The way we experience the passage of time changes as we live our lives. The first year of school feels like it passes so slowly. The last one passes in an instant. As you fall into a monotonous routine, you tune out the world as it continues on.
A lot of my mid-to-late 20s are a blur, so much so that I still feel like I’ve been perpetually 25 for half a decade.
Maybe that was what made it feel safe. When my life was consumed by routine, I never really had the time to worry about knowing what I wanted out of life. I had convinced myself that this was the dominant strategy, the best way to get through life.
Life was okay, it could have been better, but it wasn’t bad. Something was missing, I couldn’t tell what, but I could always find something to occupy my time.
I don’t have to think about this now. I have to graduate.
I don’t have to worry about this. I need to keep my job.
I shouldn’t bother. I have COVID to worry about.
There’s no time for that. I have a Master’s degree to finish.
There was always something; some convenient excuse I could use to take my mind off my emotional state and put off thinking about it for a while.
But I had done school before. I knew what to expect from classes. It would be week two, and then it would be finals.
I had been working for a bit already. Eventually, it felt like a sprint would start and then come to a close the day after it started.
I never really lived in the moment. I found safety in always looking forward to something, in keeping my eyes fixed on the future.
A trip to see friends became something to work toward. It was exciting, I knew it would be fun, and all that effort would pay off for one good weekend.
I had a convenient coping mechanism. Forget about my problems, look toward the future. I could live in the moment when the time came.
I couldn’t always do that, though, you know? Eventually your problems catch up with you.
Routine stopped being able to cover up the feeling that something was wrong. For a long time, my answer to that feeling was to go deeper into the routine. Some therapists had recommended that, after all. Keep a schedule. Stay busy. Give yourself structure. The monotonous routine made the days go by faster, and faster days gave me less time to worry.
But they also gave me less time to notice myself.
The voices in my head started to sound like counting. Counting years. Counting the distance between where I was and where I thought I could have been.
I regret not starting sooner, I grieved over time I couldn’t get back, time that was lost.
Variety
The day I started hormones, about one year ago, became the point where waiting stopped. I forced myself to live in the moment. I was already starting hormones later than most. If I couldn’t get that time back, I at least wanted to stop losing more of it. I had written on my whiteboard, big and bold, “Work towards where I want to be in a year.” I needed the reminder in a place where I would always see it. Nothing would change unless I took the steps to make it change.
I had to actively work on myself. Fitness had purpose. I knew I should work on my voice. I had to rediscover my sense of fashion and think about how I presented myself to the world. More than anything, I had to check in with myself instead of waiting for life to happen.
All of this is to say that the last year has felt like the longest year of my life. I started hormones in June, and by July it felt as if it had been months. By September, I remember thinking I must have been around the six-month mark. By the end of the year, I felt like it had to have been a full year already.
It makes sense, I think. I was paying attention in a way I had spent years avoiding. Everything felt new. Everything felt green. There were so many experiences I had missed while I was trying not to notice myself, and now even ordinary days had texture again.
The workday could still come and go in what felt like only a few hours. That part of my life still had its routine. But as soon as I got off for the day, time slowed down. That was where the change was. That was where I was.
“What a week, huh?”
“Mona, it’s only Wednesday.”
The weekend would come, and I would feel like I hadn’t seen some of my friends in a month. No wait, it had only been a week.
I thought this feeling would fade. I didn’t hear many people talk about time stretching out like this, so I assumed it was temporary, some strange thing that would eventually settle down. But it hasn’t, not yet, at least.
I feel like I am finally living after a lifetime of pretending I knew what living was.
Life has color now, and I love living it.
Hindsight
By the way, it’s She/They if you know me, She/Her otherwise~