The luxury of time

“I’m in no rush,” the woman at the end of the supermarket aisle said to me. 

We had almost crashed our carts: the aisles are narrow and one of us was making a wide right turn and the other of us might have been speeding a bit towards the intersection. We both stopped and smiled and paused before she offered to let me go ahead.

I made my tight right turn down the bread aisle. It was Saturday morning. I had come from a “lite” gym session, which was more about being social than working out since I was saving my legs for my hockey game that night. I just wanted to pick up a few food prep items.

“Thank you,” I smiled. “See you at the end of the next aisle!”

I’m in no rush, either, I thought to myself, breathing in deeply. What is the hurry? I had four unstructured hours before I had to leave for my game and it was a long weekend. I exhaled slowly, shifting into not-hurry mode.

How often do I find myself

• Rushing to the gym?

• Squeezing in one more errand?

• Running late to roller derby practice?

• Hoping my Teams meeting logs in before the minute changes to late?

• Eating too fast or on the fly?

• Taking a one-minute shower?

I couldn’t remember having more than two other days off all year due to an unusual and extremely undesirable employment scenario, which had been the status quo for the first almost nine months of the year. Plus, as a contractor, I don’t get any personal days. And when you work remotely, which I now do, is there such a thing as a sick day?

Plus, in a society that begins broadcasting Christmas music the day after Halloween, “the holidays” are generally a season of overwhelm for working moms. During an exchange with one of my friends we were appreciating the opportunity to have one extra day off and wondering if we could assume the less frenzied pace and attitude with us when we resumed our normal schedules, she commented that she needed to slow down. “I don’t have to make decisions right away. I don’t have to tackle more problems. I have enough.”

“Right,” I agreed. “One thing at a time.”

Multitasking, while often a necessity, isn’t always efficient. Breathe. Chew. Linger. Appreciate. Stop being in a hurry.