I drove back from taking my kids to school this morning with the gas light on. It was already on when I got in the car, so it was practically blinding me on the way home. But I couldn’t bring myself to stop for gas. It would’ve taken too much time, and I had only two-and-a-half hours to myself. Well, two, really, if you consider the time it takes me to get to Eve’s school and back. Two precious hours. (Those of you who read yesterday’s post, do you sense a theme here?) Like I’m gonna spend ten minutes of that time at the freakin’ gas station. (Never mind that I’ll have to get it on the way to pick up Eve from school.)

The mom of a little girl in Eve’s class told me when we saw each other at drop-off this morning that I looked like I was “always in a hurry.” I told her that I was always in a hurry, that I am perpetually late to everything. I loved her for saying that, because it was a reminder to me that my insides sometimes (often?) show on the outside. I forget so easily that if I’m feeling frantic in my head, it radiates outward and I’m walking around in this stupid-ass anxiety bubble, which is filled with question marks, exclamation points, and curse words all bouncing lightning-fast this way and that off of me and the bubble walls. We are quite a sight.

Being in a hurry is not the only reason for my anxiety, of course. But it’s got to be one of the oldest reasons for it. Somehow, in my forty years, I have not been able to grasp the fact that EVERYTHING takes time. Say I have to be somewhere at 3:00 and it takes twenty minutes to get there. My instinct is to tell myself that I need to leave at 2:40. I do not also take into account the time it takes to walk to the car, get in and put my seatbelt on, park the car, and walk from the parking lot to the building. And forget about leaving a few extra minutes in case the traffic is bad. I am increasingly aware of all this and am working on it, but I have to work hard on it, and it really doesn’t seem like it should be that hard. I mean, seriously, the concept I’m trying to grasp is this: time passes. All day long, every day. It takes time to move through the space that I live in, all day long, every day. C’mon, Alison, keep repeating it to yourself, “Time is always passing. Time is always passing. Time is ALWAYS passing.” (If I yell it to myself, will it help?)

So, you see, time is not my friend. I have no desire to travel through time. Forget about going back to the past or ahead to the future. I want to travel away from time. It wouldn’t even help to not have clocks, because we would still sense the passing of time with the rising and setting sun. Even the cave people couldn’t escape time. They must’ve been all, “Me have to stone this bear to death before that light in the sky goes out, or me gonna be food for other bears.” Talk about anxiety bubbles!

I have to stop ranting now. It is time to go get Eve. And I still have to get that damn gas.