It's About Time

"It's about time". 

I heard that phrase this week. The connotation was that some other entity was not operating at the desired speed the Boss expected. She needed something and someone was not delivering. Upon it's completion, her remark was one of exasperation and disdain. I was ecstatic that I was not the focus of her ire. 

Everyone is operating on their own timeline. Point A to Point B. Origin to Termination. Alpha to Omega. That line that connects those two points? Called "time".

Back in the day, due to the plethora of cuckoos in the world, the Swiss decided to measure that ethereal entity. So, they made clocks... And I personally hate them for it.

My dog can not tell time. Her only concept of time is that it was "an eternity" since she last ate. That is the only measurement of time she is concerned with. She has a "schedule" and it is something you could set your watch to. She knows within a 10 minute period of when she gets fed... It's almost spooky.

 

People are on their own timelines... AND they are travelling that timeline at their own velocity... My proof of this theory is thus... When you are running a little late for work, and you hit the road... EVERYONE ELSE IS NOT LATE and they drive accordingly. Slow as shit and directly in your way. Now, it could be a plot to make you MORE late, but that would take a metric fuck tonne of logistics that I do not accredit humans.

Yet another example is the one my Boss was involved in this week, that led to the utterance of the phrase that stuck in my craw. When you have to interact with other humans, when your "paths cross", it could be interpreted as the two "streams of time" have crossed.

As a once brilliant, fictional theoretical physicist once posited, "Crossing the streams would be bad." Egon ("Ghostbusters", 1984, not that shitty remake!) touched on something there... I interact with some people, like, say, Trump supporters, and "try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule of your body exploding at the speed of light." 

When you choose to interact with someone, or you are FORCED to interact with someone, you are crossing the streams. Sometimes it is bad... You get the the "total protonic reversal"... Other times, you banish Gozer the Gozarian, in the form of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, to a parallel dimension (It's a good thing).

Thinking of time as a "stream" is saturated with symbolism and imagery. I know my Mom, at the moment of reading this will think of the sappy as shit Garth Brooks song "The River", that she asked me incessantly to listen to... At a time when I exclusively listened to everything BUT that song. Mmmm, taste that? SPITE!

"Two ships passing in the night"... Hmmm... Could be a stream/timeline crossing analogy to be drawn there! Also, it was a way old people could talk about a one night stand in old timey songs.

I examine my own timeline, and look at the numerous ways I could measure it... Marriages, Presidencies, World Cups to name a few... And I think of the other timelines that I have interacted with... Some, a single, intersecting point, some lasting a more substantial period, and the timelines that have always been there...

I visualize the lines... intersecting... merging... diverting... Watching them intersect with other timelines... Then there is a party and it is one big ass, shared timeline.

The timelines I try not to think about are the ones that I know will end. The logical, rational part of my brain understands that ALL timelines end... Them's the breaks. No one gets out of here alive... 

The selfish, non-logical part of my brain knows that it is just going to fucking suck and I don't have to accept it. Until I do.

I guess in the end... Choose wisely those who you decide to cross streams with. It is not about what they can do for you or how you can help them. It is not about whether they make you happy or sad...

It's about time.

_____________________________________

If there is one thing people usually wish for more of, it's more time. That and oral sex... 

I have spent my solo timeline, for the last year or so, making it so that when I DO decide to cross the stream of someone special... It will not be a momentary intersection... I would like to be a lengthy endeavor. I feel I am at a pretty damn good place in my life. The one component that I think is missing is someone to share it with.

And, yes, I am fully aware my Mom just read that and agreed. As she would say, 

"It's about time."

For whom the bell tolls,

d

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