Learning to Take Time

Learning to Take Time

I am a wee bit obsessed with time management (think the dad in Cheaper By the Dozen meets Captain Von Trapp). It’s embarrassing to admit, but if I have a to-do list scheduled and a family member or friend stops by for an impromptu visit, I have to consciously force myself to relax and enjoy that time. When I was a resident assistant in college, freshmen girls would often stop by the office, and if I was in the middle of studying for a test or writing a paper, the whole time that girl was pouring out her little emo heart I would just keep highlighting or typing, nodding and saying, “Hmmmm-mmmhhh.” Rather than reaching out to those young girls, I frequently let my time management obsession rule me.

Today, though amply aware of this tragic flaw, I still haven’t overcome it. This weekend I planned on being the most productive of my life. Everyone close to me is out of town, so I thought I’d just burrow away and do my OCD (Obsessive Cleaning Disorder) thing. Saturday morning, fortified with coffee, I began organizing and deep cleaning as if for the last time. I sucked up dust bunnies beneath the couch, the stove, cleaned out my potato drawer. Purged drawers and cabinets of excess. Around lunch, when I was in the office vacuuming the carpet, I heard someone yell over the roar of the Hoover. (For those who do not know, my husband and I have an apartment in our store’s building.) Shutting off the vacuum, I went and saw who it was. My friend, Sandra; a charming if slightly eccentric woman I met through the store.

“You the one making all this racket?” she hollered, smiling. Over her flamboyant, vintage dress Sandra wore a floor-length wool coat with a starburst broach on the lapel. Pointed black boots peeped out from beneath the coat. A tiny black hat with velvet trim perched on her waist-length salt and pepper curls.

“Are you doing another reenactment today?” I asked.

Throwing back her head, she cackled, “Nope! Dressed up just for me!”

I pulled at the multi-colored layers of her dress. “No wonder, this’s just beautiful!”

Beaming with pride, Sandra pulled at the navy pendant on her neck. “And look,” she said, “I made this myself.”

Once we’d discussed the new jewelry she’d made, we began harping on the gruffness of Old Man Winter.

“All this ice and snow really gets to me,” Sandra said.

“You mean…like the winter blues?”

She nodded and looked way, her dramatically red lips trembling.

Knowing I wasn’t going to finish vacuuming any time soon, I resignedly sat on the office steps leading down to the store and said, “Do you ever take walks, Sandra? When it’s sunny? Maybe you’re just lacking Vitamin D….”

“I take all that stuff, but nothing helps….I just sit there and sit there and–” Sandra shuddered, looked away again. More softly she said, “I think I just need to go see the doctor.”

“Oh? Here in town?”

“Yeah, Dr. Lewis his name is. You can go right on in there, and he’ll just let you talk and talk ’bout anything you wanna talk about. When he told me I had ovarian cancer, he almost cried.”

“You had cancer?”

She nodded, her long earrings jangling. “But I’m good now. He took care of me–one of the best doctors there is, I say.”

I looked over at our cashier who was busy ringing up orders. More than once she’d mentioned her family doctor here in town. She’d been going to him for years, but not just for an annual check up. She said he had cried and prayed with her when a troubled boy was living with them and she didn’t know how to help. And just this year when her 23-year-old son died, she’d gone to the doctor time and time again. The day after her appointments she would come in whistling and smiling as if nothing in her world had ever gone wrong.

“Your doctor sounds wonderful, Sandra,” I said.

Smiling her dramatically red smile, she gushed, “Oh, he is!”

And as Sandra continued talking about her son and feral barn cats (the former as wild as the latter), hat collection and handmade jewelry, I made sure to do more than just nod, smile and absently say, “Hmmmm-mmmhhh.”

For if a doctor can take time out of his hectic schedule just to listen, what excuse have I? That there’s more carpet to vacuum? That the fridge hasn’t been wiped down or trashcans emptied?

So, this is a challenge to myself: learn to manage my time management, not let my time management keep managing me; and the next time Sandra comes in needing to chat, perhaps I’ll even set aside 30 minutes to have her in for coffee.